Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was convicted Friday of espionage and sentenced to 16 years on charges that his employer and the U.S. have rejected as fabricated. The remarkably rapid conclusion of his secretive trial in the country's highly politicized legal system could possibly clear the way for a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.
When the judge in the Sverdlovsk Regional Court asked Gershkovich if he understood the verdict, he said yes.
Gershkovich, 32, was detained in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and accused of spying for the U.S., and has been behind bars ever since.
He was the first U.S. journalist taken into custody on espionage charges since Nicholas Daniloff in 1986, at the height of the Cold War. Gershkovich's arrest shocked foreign journalists in Russia, even though the country has enacted increasingly repressive laws on freedom of speech since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Closing arguments took place behind closed doors at the trial, where Gershkovich did not admit any guilt, according to the court's press service.
Gershkovich, 32, was arrested March 29, 2023, while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. Authorities claimed, without offering any evidence, that he was gathering secret information for the U.S. - the first American journalist to be accused of espionage since the Cold War.
In a joint statement, Dow Jones CEO and Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour and Wall Street Journal editor in chief Emma Tucker said Friday that the "disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist."
They said the companies would "continue to do everything possible to press for Evan's release and to support his family," adding: "Journalism is not a crime, and we will not rest until he's released. This must end now."
Gershkovich was in court for a second straight day Friday for the closed proceedings, where officials said prosecutors requested an 18-year sentence in a high-security prison.
Unlike the trial's opening on June 26 in Yekaterinburg and previous hearings in Moscow in which reporters were allowed to see Gershkovich briefly before sessions began, there was no access to the courtroom on Thursday, but media was allowed in the court on Friday for the verdict. Espionage and treason cases are typically shrouded in secrecy.
Russian courts convict more than 99% of defendants, and prosecutors can appeal sentences that they regard as too lenient. They even can appeal acquittals.
