Russia extends pretrial detention of WSJ’s Gershkovich

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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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.