(Ekaterinburg) The first hearing in the closed-door trial of American journalist Evan Gershkovich, detained in Russia for 15 months on espionage charges he denies, was held Wednesday in a court in Yekaterinburg, Urals.
Moscow has never substantiated its accusations against the Wall Street Journal correspondent and has kept the contents of the dossier 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 plaid shirt.
He smiled at the journalists he recognized, sending them a barely audible “hi,” according to an AFP team on site.
The press was given brief access to the courtroom before the closed-door trial began.
After this first appearance, a court spokesperson, Irina Tochcheva, clarified that the next hearing will be held on August 13 and that the press will not be allowed to film the journalist again before the verdict is announced, on a date still undetermined.
Contacted by AFP, the press service of the Federal Prison Service (FSIN) refused to indicate where Mr. Gershkovich – until now in pre-trial detention in Moscow, 1,400 km from Yekaterinburg – will be kept in prison. here this new audience.
Only his lawyer or relatives “can provide this information,” the FSIN said.
He also said he did not know why Mr. Gershkovich now had a shaved head, and whether it was the standard haircut for prisoners, or a personal decision.
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,” denounced the embassy, reaffirming that the journalist was detained “illegally” and used as a “bargaining chip” by Russia “ to achieve political goals.”
Investigators accuse Mr. Gershkovich, who also worked for the AFP in Moscow from 2020 to the end of 2021, of having collected sensitive information for the CIA on one of the country’s main arms manufacturers, the company Uralvagonzavod . Russia has never made public any evidence confirming these claims.
Ouralvagonzavod notably produces T-90 tanks used in Ukraine and new generation Armata tanks, as well as freight wagons.
Mr. Gershkovich, his employer and those close to him strongly reject these accusations, as does Washington, believing that Moscow fabricated the affair in order to exchange the journalist for Russians detained in the West.
For the Wall Street Journal, the reporter, who faces up to 20 years in prison, was arrested for “simply doing his job.” He 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.
Mr. Gershkovich’s family explained to AFP in early 2024 that they were counting on the promise of American President Joe Biden to obtain the journalist’s release.
On Wednesday, the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, once again refused to comment on a possible exchange of prisoners.
A senior Russian diplomatic official, Sergei Ryabkov, 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 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 were underway and implied that he was demanding the release of Vadim Krassikov, sentenced to life in prison in Germany for having murdered in Berlin in 2019, on behalf of Moscow, 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”.
