Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has appealed the decision of a Moscow court Documents on the court’s website assume that he intends to extend his pre-trial detention in Russia until the end of November.
The American journalist was arrested in March during a work trip to the city of Yekaterinburg, nearly 2,000 kilometers east of Moscow. He is the first US journalist since the Soviet era to be held in Russia on espionage charges.
An order allowing Gershkovich to be held in jail ahead of his trial was due to expire on August 30. The Moscow City Court on Thursday extended the detention order by three months, drawing objections from US government officials and the Journal.
The court’s website said Saturday that Gershkovich’s defense had appealed. The Judgment in June declined his appeal back from the earlier decision to keep him behind bars until the end of August.
Journalists who gathered outside the court on Thursday were not allowed to attend the trial. Russian state agency Tass said the hearing was held behind closed doors as details of the criminal case were classified.
Russia’s main intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, has claimed that 31-year-old Gershkovich “at the direction of the American side collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the companies of the Russian military-industrial complex.” ”
Gershkovich and his employer deny the allegations, and the US government declared him unlawfully detained in April. The Russian authorities did not say what evidence they may have collected to support the espionage allegations.
The Wall Street Journal released a statement Thursday citing Gershkovich’s “unreasonable” detention “for doing his job as a journalist.”
“The baseless allegations against him are absolutely false and we continue to urge his immediate release. Journalism is not a crime,” the statement said.
Gershkovich is the first American reporter to be charged with espionage in Russia since the KGB arrested Nicholas Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for US News and World Report, in September 1986.
