The closed-door trial of American journalist Evan Gershkovich resumed Thursday in Yekaterinburg, the city where he was arrested in late March 2023, while reporting, on charges of “espionage,” an accusation that Russia has never substantiated.
The hearing, the second since the trial opened on June 26, began late in the morning in the Urals city, a court spokesperson told an AFP journalist present in the courthouse.
No further information was released, as the entire procedure is being kept secret. However, the Ria Novosti agency claimed that a local elected official, Viacheslav Vegner, was questioned during the hearing on Thursday, as he had allegedly been interviewed by Evan Gershkovich before the reporter’s arrest. The AFP journalist saw this deputy of the regional parliament in court.
The correspondent of the Wall Street Journal and former journalist from the AFP office in Moscow has been detained for almost 16 months.
He, his employer, his relatives, his country all vehemently reject the espionage charges against him, which carry a possible 20-year prison sentence, while the Russian authorities have revealed nothing about the contents of the file they claim to have compiled.
At the request of the defense, the hearing, originally scheduled for August, was brought forward to Thursday. It is closed to the public and unlike the previous time, journalists were not able to see the accused in the courtroom before the start of the proceedings.
For Washington, the arrest of Evan Gershkovich, 32, is primarily intended to cash in on a possible prisoner exchange.
Moscow has admitted to negotiating his release and Russian President Vladimir Putin himself has mentioned the case of Vadim Krassikov, in prison in Germany for a contract assassination attributed to Russian special services.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday from the UN headquarters in New York that contacts were underway “to see if it is possible to exchange someone for someone,” according to the state agency TASS.
Evan Gershkovich is the first Western journalist since Soviet times to be charged with espionage in Russia. His imprisonment has sparked a wave of solidarity in American and European media.
In late June, the White House denounced a “sham” trial, repeating that Mr. Gershkovich had “never worked for the government” of the United States, was “not a spy” and “should never have been arrested.”
“Arbitrary” detention
On the first day of his trial, June 26, Evan Gershkovich appeared with a shaved head, the haircut imposed on prisoners, but still smiling in the glass cage reserved for the accused. Although he cannot make statements, he has made signs to people he knows.
The journalist communicates with his family and friends through letters read and censored by the prison administration. In these letters, he says he keeps his spirits up, awaits his sentence, wants to see the sky more often, all with touches of humor.
The reporter, the child of immigrants who fled the USSR for the United States, settled in Russia in 2017. He was renowned for the quality and professionalism of his reporting.
In early July, a UN panel of experts ruled that his detention was “arbitrary” and that he should be released “without delay”.
Investigators accuse Mr Gershkovich, who worked for AFP in Moscow in 2020-2021, of collecting sensitive information for the CIA on one of Russia’s main arms manufacturers, the Uralvagonzavod company.
This plant produces, among other things, T-90 tanks used in Ukraine and the new generation Armata tanks, while its civilian activity is the production of freight cars.
Russia is holding several other Americans, including Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, arrested in 2023 on a “foreign agents” charge, and former Marine Paul Whelan, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence for espionage, a charge he disputes.
A Russian-American national, Ksenia Karelina, has been on trial since June 20, also in Yekaterinburg, for high treason, accused of having given money to a group supporting Ukraine.
Another American, Michael Travis Leake, was sentenced on Thursday in Moscow to 13 years in prison for drug trafficking.