06/26/2024June 26, 2024
US journalist Gershkovich appears before closed Russian court
Reporters briefly filmed ahead of the start of his closed trial on spying charges in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
The 32-year-old, who could face up to 20 years in a penal colony if convicted, was seen standing with a shaved head in a glass box.
Prosecutors accuse the Wall Street Journal reporter of gathering secret information on a company that makes tanks for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“The judge has entered the hall. The process has started,” court press secretary Irina Toshcheva later told reporters.
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has accused Gershkovich of “gathering secret information” for the CIA about a plant that makes and repairs tanks and other military equipment.
Gershkovich, his newspaper and the US government all reject the allegations. They say he was merely doing his job as a reporter accredited by Russia’s Foreign Ministry to work in the country.
Gershkovich is the US-born son of immigrants from the USSR, and the first Western journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in post-Soviet Russia.
He and other US citizens jailed in Russia have become embroiled in tensions between Moscow and Washington over Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country is open to the possibility of a involving Gershkovich, and contacts between the two countries have taken place.
Gershkovich has been held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison . He has appeared healthy during previous hearings that saw his appeals for release rejected.
The United States, meanwhile, accuses Russia of pursuing “hostage diplomacy.”
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