Russia has extended the pretrial detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich by three months, reports Valeriya Safranova of The New York Times.
Safranova reports, “Mr. Gershkovich has been detained in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison on espionage charges that he, the U.S. government and The Journal have vehemently denied. The United States has said he is wrongfully detained.
“In secret and short proceedings on Thursday that were closed to the news media, a Moscow court ruled that Mr. Gershkovich’s pretrial detention, which had previously been extended to Aug. 30, would now stretch until at least Nov. 30.
“The arrest of Mr. Gershkovich was the first time since the end of the Cold War that an American journalist had been detained on accusations of spying in Russia. He could face a sentence of up to 20 years in a penal colony. At the time he was detained by the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., Mr. Gershkovich was on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg and had accreditation from Russia’s Foreign Ministry.”
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