Russia prosecutor seeks 18-year sentence for US journalist Evan Gershkovich | Freedom of the Press News

Court expected to issue verdict in espionage trial of The Wall Street Journal reporter on Friday.

A Russian prosecutor is seeking an 18-year sentence for American journalist Evan Gershkovich who has been charged with espionage.

The court said a verdict is expected to be issued on Friday at 12:00 GMT.

The 32-year-old correspondent for The Wall Street Journal newspaper is the first Western journalist in Russia to be arrested on espionage charges in post-Soviet Russia.

Gershkovich is accused by prosecutors of gathering secret information about Uralvagonzavod, a plant manufacturing tanks for Russia’s war in Ukraine, on the orders of the CIA.

The reporter, his employer and the United States government deny the allegations, saying he was just doing his job, with accreditation from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Kremlin has provided no public evidence for the spying allegations against him, saying only that he was caught “red-handed” spying on a tank factory.

He was detained in March 2023 on a reporting trip to the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and then spent almost 16 months in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison.

The latest closed-door hearing started at about 10:45am (05:45 GMT) at Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg, with the prosecution and defence teams making their final arguments.

Closed-trials are standard in Russia for cases of treason or espionage involving classified material.

Gershkovich’s trial has moved rapidly since the first hearing in late June, with the prosecution and defence teams giving their final arguments on Friday.

Other similar cases in Russia have dragged on far more slowly with several weeks or even months between hearings.

‘Bargaining chip’

Tensions are running extremely high between the US, Gershkovich’s birth country, and Russia, the country of origin of his parents, over Moscow’s role in the military invasion in Ukraine.

For Washington, his arrest was primarily a “bargaining chip” for Russia to secure the release of its nationals convicted abroad.

Russia usually concludes legal proceedings against foreigners before making any deals on exchanging them for Russians held abroad.

Moscow and Washington have both said they are open to exchanging the reporter in a deal, but neither has given clues on when that might happen.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that talks between US and Russian special services over possible prisoner exchanges were ongoing, without naming any specific individuals.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has implied he wants to see the release of Vadim Krasikov, a Russian convicted in Germany of killing a Chechen separatist commander. German judges said it was an assassination orchestrated by Russian authorities.

Among other US nationals detained in Russia are reporter Alsu Kurmasheva and ballerina Ksenia Karelina, who are both dual US-Russian citizens, and former US marine Paul Whelan, who is serving a 16-year sentence for spying.

On Thursday, a Moscow court sentenced former US paratrooper Michael Travis Leake to 13 years in prison on charges of drug dealing.

A UN working group this month stated that Gershkovich’s detention on spying charges was “arbitrary” and called for his immediate release.

While in prison, he has communicated with friends and family in hand-written letters that revealed he has kept a sense of humour and not lost hope about his situation.

At his first trial hearing on June 26, he spoke briefly to greet journalists and appeared smiling and cheerful, while revealing that his head had been fully shaven.