US reporter Evan Gershkovich has been found guilty of espionage charges by a Russian court and will now spend 16 years behind bars as Washington calls the case a sham.Â
Gershkovich, a 32-year-old American who said the allegations against him were false, went on trial last month in the city of Yekaterinburg.Â
ABOUT EVAN GERSHKOVICH
He was the first US journalist arrested on spying charges in Russia since the Cold War.Â
Espionage cases often take months to handle and the unusual speed at which his trial was held behind closed doors – Friday’s hearing was only the third in the trial – has stoked speculation that a long-discussed US-Russia prisoner exchange deal involving him and potentially other Americans detained in Russia may be in the offing.
The Kremlin, when asked by Reuters on Friday about the possibility of such an exchange, declined to comment: ‘I’ll leave your question unanswered,’ said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
WHAT RUSSIA THINKS
Russian prosecutors had alleged that Gershkovich had gathered secret information on the orders of the US Central Intelligence Agency about a company that manufactures tanks for Moscow‘s war in Ukraine, which he and his employer denied.
Officers of the FSB security service arrested him on March 29, 2023, at a steakhouse in Yekaterinburg, 900 miles (1,400 km) east of Moscow.
He has since been held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison.
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Earlier on Friday, the court hearing the case had unexpectedly said it would pronounce its verdict within hours after state prosecutors demanded he be jailed for 18 years for spying.
The maximum sentence for the crime he is accused of is 20 years.
