Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was convicted on Friday of espionage and sentenced to 16 years, charges that his employer and the U.S. government have rejected as fabricated, The Associated Press reports. Closing arguments took place behind closed doors at Sverdlovsk Regional Court, where Gershkovich did not admit any guilt, according to the court’s press service. To date, Gershkovich, 32, has spent about 15 months in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison.
Gershkovich, 32, was detained in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and accused of spying for the U.S. and has been behind bars ever since. He was the first U.S. journalist taken into custody on espionage charges since Nicholas Daniloff in 1986, at the height of the Cold War. The Russian Prosecutor General’s office said last month the journalist is accused of “gathering secret information” on orders from the CIA about Uralvagonzavod, a plant about 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Yekaterinburg that produces and repairs tanks and other military equipment. Gershkovich’s employer and U.S. officials have dismissed the charges as bogus. “Evan has never been employed by the United States government. Evan is not a spy. Journalism is not a crime. And Evan should never have been detained in the first place,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said last month. Earlier this month, U.N. human rights experts said Russia violated international law by jailing Gershkovich and should release him “immediately.”