Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter falsely accused by Russian authorities of spying, was sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony, after a hurried, secret trial that the U.S. government has condemned as a sham.
WSJ reports the court’s verdict—after three days of hearings—was widely viewed as a foregone conclusion, since acquittals in Russian espionage trials are exceedingly rare. Gershkovich was afforded few of the protections normally accorded to defendants in the U.S. and other Western countries.
Russian authorities have produced no public evidence to support their allegations, which Gershkovich, the Journal and the U.S. government have vehemently and repeatedly denied. A court spokeswoman said that Gershkovich “did not admit guilt” during Friday’s proceedings.
“This fake, sham legal process that we are seeing play out has no bearing on the urgency that we have placed on seeking a release of Evan’s detention and seeking a release for Paul Whelan as well. And we’ll continue to work that process tirelessly,” Vedant Patel, deputy spokesman for the State Department, said Thursday.
Gershkovich, a 32-year-old U.S. citizen, has been imprisoned since March of last year, when he was detained by the country’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, while on a reporting assignment in Yekaterinburg, around 900 miles east of Moscow.
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