The American journalist from the Wall Street Journal Evan Gershkovich saw, Thursday, August 24, his pretrial detention extended by three months by a Moscow court. He had been arrested for espionage by the Russian security services (FSB) during a report in Yekaterinburg on March 29, 2023. This crime – of which he rejects the accusation – is punishable by twenty years in prison. “The detention period is extended by three months (…) until November 30,” the Lefortovsky court in Moscow announced in a statement.
The extension of his detention was almost certain, Russian justice only very rarely releases people imprisoned awaiting trial for such serious charges. He is being held in Lefortovo prison in Moscow, used by the FSB to keep prisoners in near total solitude.
Russia has never substantiated its charges or offered any evidence publicly, and the entire procedure has been classified as secret. The press was not allowed to attend Mr. Gershkovich’s hearing, which was held behind closed doors. No date for the trial of the journalist – who also worked for AFP – has yet been advanced. The incarceration of a foreign journalist duly accredited by the Russian authorities is unprecedented since Soviet times.
His arrest comes in the context of serious diplomatic tensions between the United States and Russia caused by Russian military aggression in Ukraine. Washington supports kyiv militarily and financially against Moscow. In recent years, several American citizens have been arrested and sentenced to heavy sentences in Russia, with Washington accusing Moscow of wanting to exchange them for Russians detained in the United States.
