American journalist Evan Gershkovich must remain in Russian custody. However, the reporter is optimistic about his first public appearance since the arrest – although he now has to return to Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison.
American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was imprisoned in Russia, will remain behind bars for the time being. This was decided by a court in Moscow on Tuesday. Before that, the Wall Street Journal reporter appealed against his pre-trial detention until May 29. The whole procedure took barely 90 minutes and the appeal was rejected.
The 31-year-old smiled and looked determined, an AFP reporter reported. In the glass box in which suspects are led in Russia, he looked with folded arms at the reporters who took pictures of him.
The court did not allow questions from reporters and the hearing was closed to the public. So Gershkovich has to stay in the notorious Moscow prison Lefortovo. According to Der Spiegel, former prisoners describe Lefortovo as a “repressive machine” whose purpose is to isolate their prisoners from the outside world.
Gershkovich faces 20 years in prison
The Russian authorities accuse the reporter of espionage, which he categorically denies. US citizen and former AFP journalist Gershkovich was arrested on March 30 during a reporting operation in Yekaterinburg.
Shortly after his arrest, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed the journalist was “caught red-handed”. However, neither Peskov nor Russian law enforcement agencies have provided any evidence to support this claim. If convicted, he faces a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
US Ambassador Lynne Tracy, who visited the journalist in prison the day before, was present in court on Tuesday. Since Gershkovich’s arrest, there has been speculation that another prisoner exchange between Russia and the United States could take place. The reporter is the first American journalist to be imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges since the end of the Soviet Union.
Before his arrest, Gershkovich interviewed families of dead Russian soldiers and critics of Vladimir Putin. Even as the stories from Russia got darker after the invasion of Ukraine, Gershkovich didn’t lose his sense of humor. “Today in Russia there are two types of news: someone is arrested, something is shut down,” he wrote on Twitter in June 2022, adding: “I was kindly reminded that there is also a third type of news: something is banned .”
Source: Krone
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