MOSCOW: “Dollar Rises Despite Cooling Inflation, Fueled by Hawkish Fed”, Russian prosecutors sent US journalist Evan Gershkovich’s case to court on Thursday (Jun 13), paving the way for him to be tried on espionage charges denied by his employer and the White House as a sham.
The Wall Street Journal reporter was arrested in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and has been held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison since.
In a statement Thursday, Russia’s Prosecutor General accused him of working for the CIA and “collecting secret information” about tank maker Uralvagonzavod in the Sverdlovsk region where he was arrested.
It said it had sent a criminal case against him to Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg “for consideration on its merits”, without saying when the trial would take place.
“Evan Gershkovich is facing a false and baseless charge. Russia’s latest move toward a sham trial is, while expected, deeply disappointing and still no less outrageous,” the Journal’s chief editor Emma Tucker and top executives said in a statement.
Moscow had previously not provided any public details of its case against Gershkovich, saying only that he was “caught red-handed”.
Gershkovich became the first Western journalist since the Soviet era to be arrested for spying in Russia when he was detained.
Washington has accused Moscow of arresting US citizens on baseless charges to use them as bargaining chips to secure the release of Russians convicted abroad.
The US government has declared Gershkovich as wrongfully detained, meaning it effectively regards him as a political hostage.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in February he would like to see Gershkovich released as part of a prisoner exchange.
