LONDON — Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who has been charged with spying in Russia, arrived in court for a scheduled appeal hearing on Tuesday.
The reporter, a correspondent with the paper’s Moscow bureau, stands accused of “acting on the instructions of the American side” and collecting state secrets about the military.
Moscow City Court was expected to hear an appeal of the espionage charge from Gershkovich’s legal team, Tatyana Nozhkina and Maria Korchagina of the ZKS law firm, according to the Wall Street Journal.
US journalist Evan Gershkovich, arrested on espionage charges, stands inside a defendants’ cage at Moscow City Court in Moscow, Russia. U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy stands nearby in a blue blazer. April 18, 2023.
Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images
Gershkovich arrived after noon local time, wearing a checkered shirt and jeans. He stood inside a glass detention area within the courtroom, a standard practice for criminal defendents in the Russian court system.
Lynne Tracy, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, was present in the courtroom.
Russia’s FSB intelligence agency said on March 30 that it had detained the WSJ journalist for spying.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in March while on a reporting trip and charged with espionage, stands behind a glass wall of an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing to consider an appeal against his detention, in Moscow, Russia, April 18, 2023.
Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters
“It is established that Evan Gershkovich, acting on the instruction of the American side, was collecting information consisting of state secrets, about the activity of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex. He was arrested in Ekaterinburg during an attempt to receive secret information,” according to Interfax, a Russian state-affiliated news agency, which quoted FSB officials.
The Wall Street Journal said the same day that it “vehemently denies” the spying allegations brought by Russia’s intelligence service against its reporter.
Journalists and members of the Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees a rally to call for release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on April 12, 2023, in Washington, D.C.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The paper “seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter,” a WSJ spokesperson said in a statement, adding, “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.”
“He is a distinguished journalist and his arrest is an attack on a free press and it should spur outrage in all free people and governments around the world,” Emma Tucker, WSJ editor-in-chief, and Almar Latour, WSJ publisher and Dow Jones CEO, said in a joint statement.
Gershkovich has been held in Lefortovo prison as he awaits trial. Tuesday’s hearing marked his first public appearance since his arrest.
The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, detained on suspicion of espionage, leaves a court building in Moscow, March 30, 2023.
Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters, FILE
U.S. officials on April 10 said they determined Gershkovich had being “wrongfully detained” by Russia, a designation that would allow the U.S. government to more aggressively advocate for his freedom.
Tracy, the U.S. ambassador, had visited the detained reporter on Monday, according to the State Department.
“I can report based on what Ambassador Tracy has said, he’s in good health and good spirits considering the circumstances,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters. “We continue to call for his immediate release from this unjust detention.”
ABC News’ Patrick Reevell, Shannon K. Crawford, Teresa Mettela, Ellie Kaufman and Cindy Smith contributed to this report.
