American journalist Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum security prison by a Russian court Friday after he was found guilty of espionage in a case that his employer, The Wall Street Journal, and the U.S. government have condemned as a sham.
Gershkovich, 32, denied any wrongdoing in the case, which went to trial last month in the city of Yekaterinburg more than a year after he was arrested in the southern Russian city on espionage charges.
The Sverdlovsk Regional Court’s press service told NBC News in a telephone interview that the state prosecutor had requested Gershkovich be sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment during closing arguments.
In a separate announcement, the court said Gershkovich had been found guilty of collecting secret information about the activities of a defense enterprise for the production and repair of military equipment on instructions from U.S. intelligence services.
The Sverdlovsk Regional Court’s Judge Andrei Mineyev remanded Gershkovich into custody until his sentence can be legally enforced. The journalist is also expected to cover the legal fees, amounting to just over $75.
His defense team has 15 days to appeal the sentence.
Russia has never published any clear evidence supporting its claims against Gershkovich.
And Jay Conti, executive vice president and general counsel for Dow Jones, WSJ’s publisher, told The Associated Press in a recent interview that the trial was a “sham” based on “bogus charges that are completely trumped up.”
The U.S. government has also condemned the charges against Gershkovich and considers him wrongfully detained.
President Joe Biden has repeatedly called on his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to release the journalist, who was arrested during a reporting trip. In the weeks after Gershkovich’s arrest, Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference that the U.S….
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