EGN NEWS DESK
Russian prosecutors introduced a significant step on Thursday of their case in opposition to Evan Gershkovich, the imprisoned American journalist, saying that they’d finalized the espionage indictment in opposition to him and that he can be tried within the Russian metropolis of Yekaterinburg, the place he was arrested greater than a 12 months in the past.
Mr. Gershkovich, 32, ought to be transferred from the infamous high-security Lefortovo jail in Moscow to face trial within the metropolis, which is about 880 miles east of the Russian capital, stated Yevgeny Smirnov, a Russian lawyer who has labored on comparable instances.
When such espionage instances go to trial in Russia, they often take about 4 months however can take as much as a 12 months, and they’re usually closed to the information media, Mr. Smirnov stated in a telephone interview. If convicted, Mr. Gershkovich faces as much as 20 years in jail.
Mr. Gershkovich, his employer and the U.S. authorities have denied the cost in opposition to him. The U.S. authorities has designated Mr. Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” which successfully implies that it considers him a political prisoner.
The Russian authorities have instructed prior to now that they might be open to a prisoner swap for Mr. Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, however solely after a verdict is handed down in his case.
At a gathering with representatives of worldwide information companies final week, President Vladimir V. Putin stated Russian and American intelligence companies have been “in contact on this situation.”
“They completely must be resolved on the premise of reciprocity,” Mr. Putin stated, referring to any potential prisoner swap involving Mr. Gershkovich.
The detention of Mr. Gershkovich, the primary American journalist arrested on a spying cost because the finish of the Cold War, highlighted the extent to which Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has broken relations between Moscow and Washington.
In a press release, prosecutors stated they’d decided that “underneath directions from the C.I.A.” and “utilizing painstaking conspiratorial strategies,” Mr. Gershkovich “was accumulating secret data” a couple of manufacturing facility that produces tanks and different weapons within the Sverdlovsk area.
The prosecutors’ assertion marked the primary time that Russian state representatives revealed particulars of the accusations in opposition to Mr. Gershkovich. The assertion didn’t current any proof to again up the accusations.
The Wall Street Journal issued a press release on Thursday predicting a “sham trial.”
“Evan Gershkovich is going through a false and baseless cost,” the assertion stated. “Russia’s newest transfer towards a sham trial is, whereas anticipated, deeply disappointing and nonetheless no much less outrageous. Evan has spent 441 days wrongfully detained in a Russian jail for merely doing his job.”
“The Russian regime’s smearing of Evan is repugnant, disgusting and primarily based on calculated and clear lies,” the assertion added.
According to Mr. Smirnov, Russian safety companies decide what constitutes labeled materials and what doesn’t in such instances. The protection has no strategy to problem their assertions, he stated.
“We perceive clearly that he’s in jail to get exchanged,” Mr. Smirnov stated in reference to Mr. Gershkovich. He added that relying on secret talks on any doable prisoner alternate, the trial might be expedited to achieve a verdict sooner.
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 searching for to make use of U.S. residents as bargaining chips to be exchanged for Russians held within the West.
Others embrace Paul Whelan, a U.S. Marine veteran, and Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Last week a Russian courtroom sentenced Yuri Malev, a Russian American nationwide, to 3 and a half years in a penal colony after he had criticized Russia, its management and its struggle in Ukraine on social media.
