American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who works for ‘The Wall Street Journal’ and was arrested last Thursday in Russia for an alleged espionage-related offense, has filed an appeal on his pre-trial detention.
»The court received a complaint from Gershkovich’s defense against the choice of a preventive measure in the form of detention,» ruled the Moscow court, which did not give details about the possible hearing to deal with his case, TASS news agency has reported.
The Moscow court ordered last Thursday that the journalist should remain in pre-trial detention until at least May 29, in a first appearance in which it confirmed the espionage charge advanced by the Federal Security Service (FSB).
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, had a telephone conversation the day before with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, in which the American asked for the »immediate release» of the journalist, as well as that of former Marine Paul Whelan.
Russian authorities detained Gershkovich in the city of Yekaterinburg. The journalist faces a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison on suspicion of »acting on orders from the United States to gather information constituting state secrets about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex».
In particular, he was allegedly gathering information about the Wagner Group, owned by oligarch Yevgeni Prigozhin, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and who has sent mercenaries to Ukraine. Gershkovich’s last article published by ‘The Wall Street Journal’ dates from March 28 under the headline ‘Russia’s economy is starting to crumble’.
Gershkovich previously worked for the French news agency AFP and the Russian daily ‘The Moscow Times’. He has also published in ‘The New York Times’, ‘The Economist’, ‘MIT Technology Review’, ‘Foreign Policy’ and Politico Europe, among other media, according to his website.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
