A court docket in Russia stated on Monday that the espionage trial of the imprisoned American journalist Evan Gershkovich would begin subsequent week and that the proceedings could be held behind closed doorways.
The primary listening to, set for June 26, will come virtually 15 months after Mr. Gershkovich, 32, was detained by safety brokers within the Russian metropolis of Yekaterinburg, about 900 miles east of Moscow. After spending greater than a yr in a high-security jail in Moscow, Mr. Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Avenue Journal, is prone to be transferred again to Yekaterinburg to face trial.
Mr. Gershkovich, who had labored in Russia as a journalist for numerous publications for greater than 5 years earlier than his arrest, his employer and the U.S. authorities have denied the costs towards him. The State Division has designated Mr. Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” which successfully compels it to work for his protected launch.
The announcement of a trial date represents a big step in Mr. Gershkovich’s authorized case, which has been persevering with in parallel with talks between Russian and American safety companies for a potential alternate.
The Russian authorities have recommended that they could possibly be open to a prisoner swap for Mr. Gershkovich, however solely after a verdict is handed down in his case. An espionage trial often takes about 4 months in Russia however can take as much as a yr, in line with legal professionals who’ve labored on such instances.
Final week, Russian prosecutors stated that they had finalized the espionage indictment towards Mr. Gershkovich. They stated that “underneath directions from the C.I.A.” and “utilizing painstaking conspiratorial strategies,” Mr. Gershkovich “was amassing secret info” a few manufacturing unit that produces tanks and different weapons within the Sverdlovsk area.
The prosecutors’ assertion was the primary time that Russian state representatives revealed particulars of the accusations towards Mr. Gershkovich. Nevertheless it lacked proof to again up the accusations.
Held behind closed doorways, the trial is unlikely to shed extra gentle on his case.
The trial will likely be heard by Andrei N. Mineev a choose on the Sverdlovsk regional court docket in Yekaterinburg, in line with an announcement from the court docket. In a 2021 interview with a Russian information web site, Mr. Mineev stated that he had solely delivered about 4 acquittals in his decades-long profession. If convicted, Mr. Gershkovich faces as much as 20 years in jail.
The Wall Avenue Journal issued an announcement final week predicting a “sham trial.”
Mr. Gershkovich is one in all a number of American nationals who’ve been detained in Russia in recent times, and his case has raised fears that the Kremlin is in search of to make use of U.S. residents as bargaining chips to be exchanged for Russians held within the West.
Different People held in Russia embrace Paul Whelan, a U.S. Marine veteran; Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; and Marc Fogel, an American instructor on the Anglo-American College in Moscow, who in 2022 was sentenced to 14 years in a penal colony for drug smuggling. Final week a Russian court docket sentenced Yuri Malev, a Russian and American nationwide, to a few and a half years in a penal colony after he had criticized Russia, its management and its warfare in Ukraine on social media.
