A Moscow court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich against his detention, more than a year after he became the first American journalist arrested in Russia on espionage charges since the Cold War.
The court ruled that Gershkovich, 32, must remain in a high-security prison in Moscow at least until the end of June, The Journal and news agencies reported. With no trial date set yet, Mr Gershkovich’s detention is likely to be extended further.
Mr. Gershkovich, his employer and the United States government have vehemently rejected the espionage charges against him. The White House has labeled Mr. Gershkovich “wrongfully detained,” a status tantamount to being a political prisoner.
In a statement Tuesday, the Journal said it “remains outrageous that Evan has been wrongfully detained by the Russian government for more than a year.”
“Evan’s freedom is long overdue, and we urge the government to do everything in its power to secure his release,” the statement said.
Unlike many other hearings, reporters were allowed into the courtroom on Tuesday. According to Reuters, Mr. Gershkovich stood in a glass box and greeted his media colleagues. The Associated Press described Mr. Gershkovich as relaxed.
In late March last year, Mr. Gershkovich was arrested by agents of the Federal Security Service, Russia’s main security agency, while on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg, a major Russian industrial city east of Moscow.
The security service has not publicly presented any evidence to support the espionage charge. In February, President Vladimir V. Putin claimed that Mr. Gershkovich “received secret, confidential information” and “did it secretly.”
Mr. Gershkovich’s arrest was one in a series of detentions of American citizens in Russia over the past six years, a process that has raised fears that the Kremlin is trying to use American citizens as a bargaining chip to barter for Russian individuals held in the West. .
In February, Mr. Putin said talks were underway about a possible exchange of Mr. Gershkovich for a Russian national held abroad. In March, a Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, told the state news agency TASS that talks about prisoner exchanges were being conducted “through a specialized closed channel.”