The next hearing for Gershkovich was set for Aug. 13, court officials said.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich went on trial behind closed doors in Yekaterinburg on Wednesday, 15 months after his arrest in the Russia n city onThe 32-year-old journalist appeared in the court in a glass defendants' cage, his head shaved and wearing a black-and-blue plaid shirt. A yellow padlock was attached to the cage.
The Journal has worked diligently to keep the case in the public eye and it has become an issue in the combative months leading up to the U.S. presidential election., Gershkovich was held in Moscow's notoriously dismal Lefortovo Prison. He has appeared healthy during court hearings in which his appeals for release have been rejected.
Gershkovich's arrest came about a year after President Vladimir Putin pushed through laws that chilled journalists, criminalizing criticism of what the Kremlin calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine and statements seen as discrediting the military. Foreign journalists largely left the country after the laws' passage; many trickled back in subsequent months, but there were concerns about whether Russian authorities would act against them.
Not only is Uralvagonzavod strategically sensitive, it's also been a nest of vehement pro-Putin sentiment where an inquisitive American could offend and alarm. In 2011, a plant manager, Igor Kholmanskikh, attracted national attention on Putin's annual call-in program by denouncing mass protests in Moscow at the time. Putin later appointed him as his regional envoy and as a member of the National Security Council.
She added that "it will not be a trial as we understand it, with a presumption of innocence and a search for the truth. This bogus accusation of espionage will inevitably lead to a bogus conviction for an innocent man."
Espionage Trial Russia U.S. Arrest Journalist Charges
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