The trial of American journalist Evan Gershkovich has begun in Russia. The reporter of Wall Street Journal, in prison since March 2023 on charges of espionage, arrived today – Wednesday 26 June – in the Yekaterinburg court. He appeared in a glass box with a shaved head and a dark checked shirt. The accredited press writes Afp, had brief access to the courtroom before the trial began behind closed doors. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
Gershkovich, son of immigrants from the Soviet Union, journalist of Wsj and former employee of Moscow Times And AFP in Moscow from 2020 to 2022, he was stopped by the FSB – Moscow’s internal secret services – on March 29th a year ago. He was in the city of Yekaterinburg, a city in the Urals where the trial is taking place, for an article on the Wagner group and what Russian citizens thought of Prigozhin’s mercenaries. Russia accuses him of «having collected sensitive information on behalf of the CIA (the US intelligence agency) on one of the country’s main arms producers, the tank manufacturer Uralvagonzavod. The newspaper and the US government deny all charges against him.
The director of the WSJ: «It’s not a process as we understand it»
For the director of Wall Street Journal calling it a trial is “unfair to Evan,” he writes in a letter to readers. «Let’s be very clear, once again – he writes -: Evan is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. He was on a mission in Russia, where he was an accredited journalist. But the Kremlin has effectively turned journalism into a crime. Evan was kidnapped, falsely accused of being a spy and thrown into prison,” he reads.
Today’s trial, he is keen to point out, «is not a trial as we understand it, with the presumption of innocence and search for the truth. It will take place rather in secret, no evidence has been revealed – he underlines -. And we already know the bottom line: This false spying charge will inevitably lead to a false conviction for an innocent man who faces up to 20 years in prison just for doing his job. And he was doing a great job, too,” he concludes.
