Gershkovich was arrested on March 29 in the Urals city of
Yekaterinburg on spying charges that carry up to 20 years in
prison.
His newspaper has emphatically rejected the charge and the
United States has accused Russia of conducting "hostage
diplomacy", at a time when bilateral relations are at their
lowest point for more than 60 years due to Moscow's actions in
Ukraine.
The FSB security service said Gershkovich was collecting
information about a Russian defence company that was a state
secret. The Kremlin said he was caught "red-handed" but has
provided no detail to support the assertion. The White House has
called the charges "ridiculous" and President Joe Biden has said
Gershkovich's detention is "totally illegal". No date has been
set for a trial. Gershkovich has so far failed in two appeals,
in April and June, against his pre-trial detention in Moscow's
Lefortovo prison, where suspects accused by the KGB security
service were held in Soviet times.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy has been allowed to visit
him in prison only three times, most recently on Aug. 14, in the
nearly five months since he was arrested. Russia has said that
any prisoner exchange could only be considered after a court
verdict, and via a special channel handled by the security
services.
It has agreed to high-profile swaps in the past, most recently
in December 2022 when it traded Brittney Griner, a U.S.
basketball star convicted of a drugs offence in Russia for
Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout. Washington has pledged to
do "whatever it takes" to bring home Gershkovich and ex-Marine
Paul Whelan, convicted of espionage in 2020 and serving 16 years
in a Russian penal colony on spying charges that he too denies.
The United States has designated both men as "wrongfully
detained", meaning that it considers the charges against them to
be bogus and politically motivated.
(Writing by Mark Trevelyan and Felix LightEditing by Gareth
Jones)
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