Evan Gershkovich, the American reporter accused of spying in Russia, must remain in custody until at least the end of March, bringing his time behind bars to a year while awaiting trial.
Gershkovich, a correspondent at The Wall Street Journal, wore a gray hoodie and jeans and looked calm in a video shared by Russian news agencies showing him outside Lefortovo court in Moscow.
His pre-trial detention has been extended several times since his arrest in March last year. He has now spent a total of 304 days behind bars and no date has been set for his trial.
U.S. Consul General Stuart Wilson is said to have attended the hearing, which was closed to the public because, authorities say, details of the criminal case are classified. After the procedure, a masked man was seen escorting 32-year-old Gershkovich through light snow to a prison van.
The reporter was arrested while on assignment in Russia and a month later accused of “espionage in the interests of his country”. Both Gershkovich and the WSJ reject the allegations, and the US has accused Russia of detaining him for political reasons.
The Federal Security Service said it seized Gershkovich in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg on suspicion of “collecting secret information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”
Independent Russian media say he was on a journalistic assignment speaking to employees of Uralvagonzavod, a tank manufacturer. He denies the espionage charge, but faces 20 years in prison if convicted.
The WSJ says Gershkovich was “wrongfully detained because… he was simply doing his job as a journalist, and any representation to the contrary is fiction.”
President Vladimir Putin last month raised the prospect of releasing Gershkovich through a prisoner swap deal. At a televised news conference, Putin said he hoped an agreement would be reached with the US over Gershkovich and another US citizen, Paul Whelan, who was convicted of espionage in 2020.
Asked about Gershkovich and Whelan, Putin said: “It’s not that we refuse to send them home. We want to reach an agreement and these agreements must be acceptable to both parties.”
The White House has said Gershkovich was wrongfully detained. Russia has not provided any evidence to support the spying allegations.
US officials suggested early last month that a “major proposal” to secure the release of the reporter, along with Whelan, through a prisoner swap had been rejected by Russia.
Gershkovich, who grew up in New Jersey as the son of Soviet émigrés, joined the WSJ in early 2022 as a Moscow correspondent. He previously worked in Russia for Agence France-Presse and The Moscow Times.
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