Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was
detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB) on March 29 in
the Urals city of Yekaterinburg on charges of espionage that
carry up to 20 years in prison.
Gershkovich, wearing jeans with a dark shirt over a white
T-shirt, smiled quizzically from a glass box in court at
journalists who were allowed to photograph him before the closed
hearing. FSB officers, some in masks, looked on.
Judge Yuri Pasyunin said the Moscow city court had decided to
leave without change an earlier court decision to extend his
pre-trial detention.
"The appeal complaint is left without satisfaction," Pasyunin
said. Reporters were allowed to listen to the court's decision
via a video link in a different part of the court house.
The decision essentially means that Gershkovich, 32, will remain
in detention. No date has been set for his trial.
Gershkovich is the first American journalist to be detained on
spy charges in Russia since the Cold War. American diplomats
attended the Moscow courthouse.
Russia has said Gershkovich, the first American journalist to be
detained on such charges since the Cold War, was caught
"red-handed" while the FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era
KGB, said he was trying to obtain military secrets.
The White House has called the charges "ridiculous" and
President Joe Biden has said Gershkovich's detention is "totally
illegal". The Journal denies the charges and has called for his
immediate release, as has his family.
Russia has yet to make any evidence in the case public.
Tuesday's hearing was closed due to the case containing
materials classified as secret.
A fluent Russian-speaker born to Soviet emigres and raised in
New Jersey, Gershkovich moved to Moscow in late 2017 to join the
English-language Moscow Times, and subsequently worked for the
French news agency Agence France-Presse.
Russia announced the start of its "special military operation"
in February 2022, just as Gershkovich was in London, about to
return to Russia to join the Journal's Moscow bureau.
It was decided that he would live in London but travel to Russia
frequently for reporting trips, as a correspondent accredited
with the Foreign Ministry.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and
Gareth Jones)
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