Evan Gershkovich, Wall Street Journal Reporter, Returns to Court in Russia

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Evan Gershkovich, Wall Street Journal Reporter, Returns to Court in Russia

The espionage trial of Evan Gershkovich, the imprisoned reporter for The Wall Street Journal, appears to be moving ahead quickly, with the court in Russia where he appeared on Thursday scheduling closing arguments for Friday.

Mr. Gershkovich appeared in a courtroom in the city of Yekaterinburg for the second hearing in his espionage trial, the court’s press service said, according to RIA Novosti, a state news agency. The court said that it had finished investigating evidence in Mr. Gershkovich’s case and was ready to move to closing arguments.

The hearing was initially scheduled to take place on Aug. 13.

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to Mediazona, a Russian news outlet, the court moved it ahead at the request from Mr. Gershkovich’s lawyers.

Vladimir A. Zherebenkov, a Russian lawyer who worked on a similar espionage case, said the court’s proceedings were “fast.” An espionage trial usually takes about four months in Russia but can take up to a year, according to lawyers who have worked on such cases. The first hearing in Mr. Gershkovich’s case happened on June 26.

Mr. Zherebenkov said the court was likely to recess to formulate a ruling after the closing arguments, and that Mr. Gershkovich could make a statement too.

The hearing on Thursday came a day after the Russian foreign minister, Sergei V. Lavrov, reiterated that Russia and the ******* States were holding talks on a possible prisoner exchange involving Mr. Gershkovich.

Speaking on Wednesday at a news conference at the ******* Nations in New York, Mr. Lavrov also

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that Russia had “irrefutable evidence” that Mr. Gershkovich had been engaged in “espionage activities.”

Because Mr. Gershkovich’s case is classified, his lawyers are prohibited by law from speaking publicly about the case, under penalty of imprisonment.

The hearing came more than 15 months after Mr. Gershkovich, 32, was detained by security agents in Yekaterinburg, which is about 900 miles east of Moscow. After spending more than a year in a high-security prison in Moscow, Mr. Gershkovich was transferred back to Yekaterinburg to stand trial.

Mr. Gershkovich, the first Western reporter to be detained on an espionage charge in Russia since the Cold War era, had worked in Russia as a journalist for various publications for more than five years before his arrest.

His employer and the U.S. government have denied the charges against him, calling them politically motivated. The State Department has

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as

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which effectively compels it to work for his safe release.

Held behind closed doors, the trial is unlikely to shed more light on the prosecution’s case. But the verdict is in little doubt. The Russian justice system overwhelmingly produces guilty verdicts.

The Russian authorities have suggested that any potential prisoner swap would come only after a verdict is handed down.

In June, Russian prosecutors said they had finalized the espionage indictment against Mr. Gershkovich. They said that “under instructions from the C.I.A.” and “using painstaking conspiratorial methods,” Mr. Gershkovich “was collecting secret information” about a factory that produces tanks and other weapons in the Sverdlovsk region.

The prosecutors’ statement was the first time that Russian state representatives revealed details about the accusations against Mr. Gershkovich. But they have yet to provide any evidence to back up the charge.

The trial is being heard by Andrei N. Mineev, a judge on the Sverdlovsk regional court in Yekaterinburg, according to a statement from the court. In a 2021 interview with a Russian news website, Mr. Mineev said that he had

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in his decades-long career. If convicted, Mr. Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison.

The Wall Street Journal has called the proceedings a “sham trial.”

Mr. Gershkovich is one of several ********* citizens who have been detained in Russia in recent years, and his case has raised fears that the Kremlin is seeking to use ********* citizens as bargaining chips to be exchanged for Russians held in the West.

On Thursday, a court in Moscow

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Michael Travis Leake, an ********* rock musician who had been living in Russia, to 13 years in a high-security penal colony after prosecutors accused him of organizing a ***** trafficking ring. Mr. Leake’s plea has not been made public.

The court also sentenced Veronika Grabanchuk, whom it identified as his accomplice, to eight years in a penal colony.

Other Americans held in Russia include Paul Whelan, a Marine veteran; Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; and Marc Fogel, a teacher at the Anglo-********* School in Moscow, who in 2022 was sentenced to 14 years in a penal colony for ***** smuggling.

In June, a Russian court sentenced Yuri Malev, who holds both ********* and Russian citizenship, to three and a half years in a penal colony after he criticized Russia, its leadership and its war in Ukraine on social media.

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