Gershkovich trial to be held behind closed doors

Evan Gershkovich

The jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will be tried behind closed doors by a Russian court later this month, reports Andrew Roth of The Guardian.

Roth reports, “On Monday, the court announced that his trial would begin on 26 June in a ‘closed regime,’ meaning journalists will not be allowed to attend or report on details of the accusations. Trials involving national security are often closed in Russia. In previous cases, large parts of verdicts have also been delivered in secret.

“Investigators claim Gershkovich was working for the CIA to gather information on Uralvagonzavod, a Russian arms manufacturer that makes the country’s main battle tanks, along with other armaments. The maximum sentence is 20 years in prison.

“Gershkovich was accredited by the foreign ministry to work in Russia as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, which has said that he has been falsely charged.

“‘Evan Gershkovich is facing a false and baseless charge,’ the Wall Street Journal’s publisher, Almar Latour, and its editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, said in a statement.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.