Russian court sentences WSJ’s Gershkovich to 16 years

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony, after being wrongfully convicted in a hurried, secret trial, reports Georgi Kantchev of The Journal.

Kantchev reports, “The court’s Friday 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.

“After reading the ruling, the judge asked Gershkovich if he understood. Gershkovich, standing in the dock and wearing a dark T-shirt, responded with a nod. He gave a brief wave before being removed by security officers.

“‘This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist,’ Almar Latour, the chief executive of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and Wall Street Journal 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.