US journalist marks a year in a Russian prison as courts keep extending his time behind bars
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich marks a year behind bars on Friday following his arrest by Russian authorities who accuse him of espionage but have offered no supporting evidence
For Evan Gershkovich, the dozen appearances in Moscow's courts over the past year have fallen into a pattern.
Guards take the American journalist from the notorious Lefortovo Prison in a van for the short drive to the courthouse. He’s led in handcuffs to a defendants’ cage in front of a judge for yet another hearing about his pretrial detention on espionage charges.
The proceedings are always closed. His appeals are always rejected, and his time behind bars is always extended. Then it’s back to Lefortovo.
Gershkovich was arrested a year ago Friday while on a reporting trip for The Wall Street Journal to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. The Federal Security Service, or FSB, alleges he was acting on U.S. orders to collect state secrets but provided no evidence to support the accusation, which he, the Journal and the U.S. government deny. Washington designated him as wrongfully detained.
The periodic court hearings give Gershkovich’s family, friends and U.S. officials a glimpse of him, and for the 32-year-old journalist, it’s a break from his otherwise largely monotonous prison routine.
“It’s always a mixed feeling. I’m happy to see him and that he’s doing well, but it’s a reminder that he is not with us. We want him at home,” Gershkovich’s mother, Ella Milman, told The Associated Press.
Although Gershkovich is often seen smiling in the brief appearances in open court, friends and family say he finds it hard to face a wall of cameras pointing at him as if he were an animal in a zoo.
Ahead of the most recent one on Tuesday,
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