7 minutes agoRussia sentenced American journalist to 16 years in prison
Periskopi(2 years ago)
(2 years ago)Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich was sentenced today by Russia to 16 years in prison under spying charges, what his employer and the US have dismissed as fabricated, the AP reports. The conclusion of his fast and secret trial in Russia's highly politicised legal system probably opened [...]
The conclusion of his swift and secret trial in Russia's highly politicised legal system probably paved the way for an exchange of prisoners between Moscow and Washington.
When the judge at the Regional Court of Sverdlovska asked Gershkovichin if he understood the verdict, he said yes.
Gershkovich, 32, was arrested in March 2023 as he was on a reporting trip to the town of Ural Mountains in Yekaterinburg and charged with spying on the US. He's been behind bars ever since.
He was the first American journalist arrested on spying charges since Nicholas Daniloff in 1986, at the height of the Cold War. Gershkovich's arrest shocked foreign journalists in Russia, even though the country has increasingly passed more and more depressed laws on freedom of speech after sending troops to Ukraine.
Russian authorities claimed, without offering any evidence, that he was collecting classified information for the US.
