Russia extends detention of US journalist for 3 more months

ISTANBUL

A Russian court on Tuesday extended the detention of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich for another three months, the country’s state media reported.

“The Moscow City Court considered the petition of the preliminary investigation authorities and extended the period of detention in relation to Evan Gershkovich until June 30,” the court’s press service told Russian state news agency TASS.

The report further said the meeting was held behind closed doors because it contained classified materials and added that a criminal case was opened against Gershkovich under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code.

Commenting on the court’s decision, US Ambassador to Moscow Lynne Tracy said that the extension of Gershkovich’s detention is “particularly distressing” as this week marks one year since he was detained in Yekaterinburg.

“The accusations against Evan are categorically untrue. They are not a different interpretation of circumstances, they are fiction,” Tracy said in a statement released by the embassy, indicating that Russia has yet to provide any evidence to back up the charges against Gershkovich and justify his detention.

Tracy further said that Gershkovich’s case is about “using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends, as the Kremlin is doing in the case of Paul Whelan.”

He said that the Kremlin must release both Gershkovich and Whelan if it has “any desire to salvage Russia’s integrity and international esteem.”

Gershkovich, a US citizen who worked as a reporter at the Journal’s Moscow bureau, was arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service in the city of Yekaterinburg in March last year on espionage charges.

The Russian Federal Security Service claimed that he was caught "red-handed" in the process of collecting secret information.