PHOTO: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison on Friday, charges that his employer and the U.S. government have dismissed as fabricated.
The conclusion of his swift and secretive trial in Russia’s highly politicized legal system potentially paves the way for a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.
According to the Associated Press, when the judge in the Sverdlovsk Regional Court asked Gershkovich if he understood the verdict, he said, “Yes.”
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Gershkovich, 32, was detained in March 2023 during a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. Accused of spying for the U.S., he has remained in custody since his arrest.
He is the first American journalist to be detained on espionage charges in Russia since Nicholas Daniloff in 1986, during the height of the Cold War.
Gershkovich’s arrest has alarmed foreign journalists working in Russia, a country that has imposed increasingly repressive laws on freedom of speech following its military actions in Ukraine.
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