The first hearing in the closed-door trial of American journalist Evan Gershkovich, detained in Russia for 15 months on espionage charges that he denies, took place on Wednesday in a court in Yekaterinburg, in the Urals.
The Russian authorities have never substantiated their accusations against this correspondent of the Wall Street Journal and kept the contents of the file secret.
Mr. Gershkovich, 32, was arrested in March 2023 while reporting in Yekaterinburg by the Russian security services (FSB), becoming the first Western journalist since Soviet times to be accused of espionage in Russia.
The reporter appeared in a glass box at the Sverdlovsk regional court on Wednesday, with a shaved head and wearing a dark checkered shirt.
He smiled at the journalists he recognized, sending them a barely audible “hello”, according to an AFP team on site.
The press had brief access to the courtroom before the start of this closed-door trial.
After this first appearance, a court spokesperson, Irina Tochcheva, clarified that the next hearing would take place on August 13 and that the press would not be allowed to film the journalist again before the verdict was announced, on a date still undetermined.
Contacted by AFP, the press service of the Federal Prison Service (FSIN) refused to say where Mr. Gershkovich – until now in pre-trial detention in Moscow, 1,400 km from Yekaterinburg – will be kept in custody from now on. to this new audience.
Only his lawyer or his relatives “can provide this information,” replied the FSIN.
He also said he did not know why Mr. Gershkovich now had a shaved head, whether it was the standard haircut for prisoners or a personal decision.
“A mock trial”
In a statement, the US Embassy in Moscow said its representatives were able to attend a short part of the hearing on Wednesday.
“During this time, the Russian authorities have not presented any evidence corroborating the accusations,” she denounced, reaffirming that the journalist was detained “illegally” and used as a “bargaining chip” by Russia. to achieve political objectives.
Investigators assure that Mr. Gershkovich, who also worked for the AFP in Moscow from 2020 to the end of 2021, collected sensitive information for the CIA on one of the main Russian arms manufacturers, the Uralvagonzavod company. Russia has never publicly provided any proof of this.
Uralvagonzavod notably produces T-90 tanks used in Ukraine and those of the new generation Armata, as well as freight wagons.
Mr. Gershkovich, his employer and those close to him firmly reject these accusations, as does Washington, believing that Moscow fabricated the affair in order to exchange the journalist for Russians detained by the West.
THE Wall Street Journal wrote Wednesday that the reporter, arrested according to him for “simply doing his job” and who faces up to 20 years in prison, was facing “trumped up charges” and “a sham trial.”
“Evan is a journalist and journalism is not a crime,” Mr. Gershkovich’s family insisted in a press release released the same day. “We urge the U.S. government to continue to do everything possible to bring Evan home now.”
The latter spent his pre-trial detention in the Moscow prison of Lefortovo, administered by the FSB, but is on trial in Yekaterinburg, where he was arrested.
Exchange and assassination
The spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, for his part, once again refused on Wednesday to comment on a possible exchange of prisoners.
A senior Russian diplomatic official, Sergei Riabkov, said last week that Moscow had made a proposal to Washington for such an exchange, without revealing the content of this offer.
On Wednesday, Mr. Riabkov, quoted by the Interfax news agency, called on the United States to study “seriously” the “signals” sent by Moscow on this subject.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has already acknowledged that negotiations are underway and implied that he is demanding the release of Vadim Krasikov, sentenced to life in prison in Germany for murdering in Berlin in 2019, on behalf of Russia , a former Chechen separatist commander.
Russia is holding several other Americans, including Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, arrested in 2023 for violating the “foreign agents” law, and ex-Marine Paul Whelan, who is serving a 16-year sentence. years in prison for espionage, a charge he disputes.
Son of Jewish immigrants from the USSR, Evan Gershkovich grew up in New Jersey and had worked in Russia since 2017 for several media outlets.
He said in 2023, in a letter to his newspaper, “not to lose hope”.