Moscow Court to Hear Appeal on Detention of Jailed WSJ Reporter Evan Gershkovich
Lawyers for Evan Gershkovich are challenging his detention to a Moscow court. Photo: maxim shipenkov/Shutterstock By Ann M. Simmons April 18, 2023 12:01 am ET A Moscow court is scheduled Tuesday to hear an appeal on the detention of Evan Gershkovich, the jailed Wall Street Journal reporter arrested in Russia last month. Mr. Gershkovich’s lawyers, Tatyana Nozhkina and Maria Korchagina of the ZKS law firm, are challenging his detention, nearly three weeks after the journalist was arrested for espionage, an allegation the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny. The Moscow City Court could uphold Mr. Gershkovich’s continued pretrial detention in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, order him moved to another jail, allow him house
Lawyers for Evan Gershkovich are challenging his detention to a Moscow court.
Photo: maxim shipenkov/Shutterstock
A Moscow court is scheduled Tuesday to hear an appeal on the detention of Evan Gershkovich, the jailed Wall Street Journal reporter arrested in Russia last month.
Mr. Gershkovich’s lawyers, Tatyana Nozhkina and Maria Korchagina of the ZKS law firm, are challenging his detention, nearly three weeks after the journalist was arrested for espionage, an allegation the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny.
The Moscow City Court could uphold Mr. Gershkovich’s continued pretrial detention in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, order him moved to another jail, allow him house arrest or grant him bail. Mr. Gershkovich is in pretrial detention until May 29, although Russian authorities can extend that period.
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It couldn’t be determined whether Mr. Gershkovich would appear in person at the hearing or via video from the detention facility and whether reporters or representatives from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow would be allowed into the courtroom.
Under Russian law, the court’s final decision on the appeal must be communicated in public.
The hearing follows the U.S. State Department’s decision last week to designate Mr. Gershkovich as wrongfully detained, a status that officially commits the government to seeking his release.
On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy visited Mr. Gershkovich at Lefortovo, the first access to him provided to U.S. officials since his detention on March 29.
“He is in good health and remains strong,” Ms. Tracy said. “We reiterate our call for his immediate release.”
Mr. Gershkovich was accredited to work as a journalist in Russia by the country’s Foreign Ministry at the time of his detention while reporting in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, about 800 miles east of Moscow. On April 7, he was formally charged with espionage.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, said the journalist “acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was detained in Russia on March 29 while on a reporting trip and accused of spying. Here’s a breakdown of the events surrounding his arrest and what comes next. Illustration: Todd Johnson
A conviction in the case carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Virtually all espionage trials in Russia end in a guilty verdict.
Mr. Gershkovich’s arrest has spurred international condemnation. President Biden has called the arrest “totally illegal.” Former Vice President Mike Pence has called on the Biden administration to expel Russian diplomats.
In a video interview with the Journal published Friday, Mr. Gershkovich’s parents, Ella Milman and
“It’s one of the American qualities that we absorbed, you know, be optimistic, believe in [a] happy ending,” Ms. Milman said in the video.
On Friday, she received a letter to the family that her son hand wrote in Russian from prison.
“I want to say that I am not losing hope,” Mr. Gershkovich wrote in the two-page correspondence.
Write to Ann M. Simmons at [email protected]
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