EGN NEWS DESK
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 first listening to, set for June 26, will come nearly 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 Street Journal, is more likely to be transferred again to Yekaterinburg to face trial.
Mr. Gershkovich, who had labored in Russia as a journalist for varied publications for greater than 5 years earlier than his arrest, his employer and the U.S. authorities have denied the fees towards him. The State Department has designated Mr. Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” which successfully compels it to work for his secure 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 attainable trade.
The Russian authorities have prompt that they might 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, based on legal professionals who’ve labored on such circumstances.
Last week, Russian prosecutors stated that they had finalized the espionage indictment towards Mr. Gershkovich. They stated that “below directions from the C.I.A.” and “utilizing painstaking conspiratorial strategies,” Mr. Gershkovich “was accumulating secret data” a few manufacturing facility 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. But it lacked proof to again up the accusations.
Held behind closed doorways, the trial is unlikely to shed extra mild on his case.
The trial can be heard by Andrei N. Mineev a judge on the Sverdlovsk regional court docket in Yekaterinburg, based on a press release 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 Street Journal issued a press release 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.
Other Americans 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 teacher on the Anglo-American School in Moscow, who in 2022 was sentenced to 14 years in a penal colony for drug smuggling. Last week a Russian court docket sentenced Yuri Malev, a Russian and American nationwide, to 3 and a half years in a penal colony after he had criticized Russia, its management and its warfare in Ukraine on social media.
