A Russian court has sentenced American journalist Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison after convicting him for espionage in a closed-door trial, according to state media.
The 32-year-old correspondent for The Wall Street Journal pleaded not guilty and his employer and the United States have denounced the charges as fabricated.
Gershkovich was sentenced to “punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of 16 years in a strict regime colony”, Judge Andrei Mineyev said, announcing the verdict on Friday as the reporter stood in a glass cage, according to video of the hearing released by the court.
Asked by the judge if he had any questions, he replied “No” in Russian.
“This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist,” Almar Latour, the chief executive of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Emma Tucker said in a statement.
Mineyev said the time that Gershkovich had already served since his arrest nearly 16 months ago would count towards the sentence. The judge also ordered the destruction of the reporter’s mobile phone and paper notebook.
The defence has 15 days to appeal.
The journalist was arrested on March 29, 2023, while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg.
He was accused by prosecutors of gathering secret information about Uralvagonzavod, a plant manufacturing tanks for Russia’s war in Ukraine, on the orders of the CIA.
The authorities have provided no public evidence for the allegations against him, with the Kremlin saying only that he was caught “red-handed” spying on a tank factory in the Urals and was working for the CIA.
He is the first Western journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in post-Soviet Russia.
Gerschkovich, his newspaper and the US government say he was just doing his job, with accreditation from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The prosecution had earlier asked the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg for an 18-year sentence.
Closed-trials are standard in Russia for cases of treason or espionage involving classified material. Gershkovich’s trial has moved rapidly since the first hearing in late June.
“We will continue to do everything possible to press for Evan’s release and to support his family,” said the statement from his employer. “Journalism is not a crime, and we will not rest until he’s released. This must end now.”
