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A courtroom in Moscow rejected an attraction on Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in opposition to his detention, greater than a yr after he grew to become the primary American journalist arrested on spying expenses in Russia because the Cold War.
The courtroom dominated that Mr. Gershkovich, 32, should keep in a high-security jail in Moscow at the least till the tip of June, The Journal and information businesses reported. With no trial date but set, Mr. Gershkovich’s detention is more likely to be prolonged additional.
Mr. Gershkovich, his employer and the U. S. authorities have vehemently rejected the espionage expenses in opposition to him. The White House has designated Mr. Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” a standing tantamount to being a political prisoner.
In its assertion on Tuesday, The Journal stated that it “continues to be outrageous that Evan has been wrongfully detained by the Russian authorities for greater than a yr.”
“Evan’s freedom is lengthy overdue, and we urge the administration to do every little thing of their energy to safe his launch,” the assertion stated.
Unlike at many different hearings, reporters had been allowed into the courtroom on Tuesday. According to Reuters, Mr. Gershkovich stood in a glass field and greeted his media colleagues. The Associated Press described Mr. Gershkovich as wanting relaxed.
At the tip of March final yr, Mr. Gershkovich was arrested by brokers of the Federal Security Service, Russia’s most important safety service, whereas on a reporting journey to Yekaterinburg, a significant Russian industrial metropolis east of Moscow.
The safety service has not publicly introduced any proof to assist the spying cost. In February, President Vladimir V. Putin claimed that Mr. Gershkovich “was receiving categorized, confidential data” and “did it covertly.”
Mr. Gershkovich’s arrest was one in a sequence of detentions of American nationals in Russia over the previous six years, a course of that has raised fears that the Kremlin is searching for to make use of U.S. residents as bargaining chips to be exchanged for Russian people held within the West.
In February, Mr. Putin stated that talks had been underway over a possible trade of Mr. Gershkovich for a Russian nationwide held overseas. In March, a Russian deputy overseas minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, informed TASS, a state information company, that prisoner trade talks had been performed “by way of a specialised closed channel.”
