A Russian court has found US reporter Evan Gershkovich guilty of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in a maximum security prison. His employer, the Wall Street Journal, described the verdict as a “shameful sham.”
Gershkovich, a 32-year-old American who denied any wrongdoing, went on trial in the city of Yekaterinburg last month on charges of trying to obtain confidential information about a tank factory.
He was the first US journalist since the Cold War to be accused of spying in Russia, and his arrest in March 2023 prompted many US and other Western correspondents to leave Moscow.
US President Joe Biden said Gershkovich had committed no crime and was wrongfully detained.
“We are pushing for Evans’ release with all our might and will continue to do so,” Biden said in a statement.
“Journalism is not a crime.”
A video of Friday's hearing released by the court shows Gershkovich, dressed in a T-shirt and black pants, standing in a glass display case in the courtroom and listening for almost four minutes to the reading of the verdict in rapid legal German.
When the judge asked him if he had any questions, he replied: “Nyet.”
The judge, Andrei Mineyev, said the nearly 16 months Gershkovich had already served since his arrest would count toward the 16-year sentence.
Mineyev ordered the destruction of the reporter's cell phone and notebook. The defense has 15 days to appeal.
“This shameful sham conviction comes after Evan spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, separated from his family and friends, and prevented from reporting – all for doing his job as a journalist,” the Journal said in a statement.
“We will continue to do everything we can to force Evans' release and support his family. Journalism is not a crime and we will not rest until he is released. This must end now.”
Gershkovich's friend, reporter Pyotr Sauer of the British newspaper Guardian, posted on X: “Russia has just sentenced an innocent man to 16 years in a maximum security prison. I have no words to describe this farce. Let's get Evan out of there.”
The hearing on Friday was only the third in this case. Apart from the verdict, the proceedings were held behind closed doors for reasons of state secrecy.
Spy cases often take months to process, and the unusual speed with which the trial was held behind closed doors has fueled speculation that a long-discussed prisoner swap between the U.S. and Russia is imminent, involving Gershkovich and possibly other Americans imprisoned in Russia.
When asked by Reuters on Friday about the possibility of such an exchange, the Kremlin declined to comment: “I will leave your question unanswered,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Among those Russia would like to release is Vadim Krasikov, a Russian serving a life sentence in Germany for murdering an exiled Chechen-Georgian dissident in a Berlin park in 2019.
Officers of the FSB security service arrested Gershkovich on March 29, 2023 in a steakhouse in Yekaterinburg, 1,400 km east of Moscow. Since then, he has been held in Moscow's Lefortovo prison.
Russian prosecutors had accused Gershkovich of collecting secret information on behalf of the US secret service CIA about a company that produces tanks for Moscow's war in Ukraine.
Gershkovich, his newspaper and the U.S. government denied the allegations against him, saying he was simply doing his job as a reporter accredited by the State Department to work in Russia.
President Vladimir Putin said Russia was open to a prisoner exchange in connection with Gershkovich. There had been contacts with the United States, but these had to remain secret.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that Washington was working daily to bring Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan and other Americans home.
Friends who exchanged letters with Gershkovich report that throughout his imprisonment he remained resilient and cheerful and occupied himself with reading classics of Russian literature.
In court appearances over the past 16 months – most recently with a shaved head – he often smiled and nodded to reporters with whom he had worked before he himself became the focus of the story.