WSJ Reporter Evan Gershkovich To Stand Trial In Russia Next Week — This Is What To Expect

3 months ago

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been detained in a Russian prison since March 2023 on allegations of espionage, will stand trial beginning June 26. Dr. Gulnoza Said, the Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, joins Britany Lewis in Forbes Newsroom to discuss.

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Transcript

00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes Breaking News. Joining me now is Dr. Gulnaziz

00:07Saeed with the Committee to Protect Journalists. Dr. Saeed, thank you so much for joining me today.

00:13Thank you for having me.

00:15It's a follow-up to a conversation we had over a year ago when Wall Street

00:19journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was originally detained in Russia.

00:23Now he has a trial date set. It's for next week, June 26th. What's your reaction to the

00:29news that he will be standing trial? I've been saying from the beginning that

00:38it's very likely that Evan will be tried and convicted in Russia before we will see any

00:46development for his release, namely potential prisoners exchange. So in that regard,

00:54this news didn't come as a surprise. The trial will start next week, and it

01:02is very likely to last for a few months before we see conviction.

01:08And last year, like you said, you believe that Russia believes in their eyes that

01:13Evan's already guilty. He'll likely face a conviction. So when or at all can we expect

01:20the United States to step in and maybe see a prisoner swap go into action?

01:27I think the answer to this question lies with the Russian authorities rather than with the

01:32American authorities. As far as we know from the Wall Street Journal and other reports,

01:38the U.S. officials have been in touch with the Russians negotiating a potential prisoners

01:47exchange for quite a few months, actually. But I think the Russians are playing a long-term

01:55game here. I think for them now it's very important to see the results of the U.S. elections

02:02and maybe even the inauguration of the next president before they will actually act.

02:10Do you think from the – does the CPJ rather think that the Biden administration and the

02:16State Department are doing enough to secure Evan's release? Because I want to get your

02:20response to some comments from Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He said last year that the United

02:25States was intensely engaged in talks with Russia to secure the release, but he added that at the

02:30moment he didn't see a, quote, clear way forward. So now, a year later, here we are, Evan's still

02:37going to trial, he's still detained in Russia, State Department labeling him wrongly detained.

02:42Are you happy with the progress?

02:46Look, we are not private to all the details of the negotiations. We know as much as the State

02:54Department officials tell us in some meetings and as much as we know from the media reports.

03:02As far as I understand, the U.S. officials have been very committed to get Evan released and

03:09return him back to the United States. But as I said, a lot depends on the Russian officials and

03:17their approach, and they are playing a long-term game here. They see Evan as nothing but a

03:26bargaining chip, and they are going to – in their eyes, Evan's value will increase if he is a

03:34convicted felon, and that's where the whole process is headed.

03:39I want to know how Evan's doing, if you have any insight into that, because

03:44he's been in a Moscow prison called the Fort of O for over a year now. And last year,

03:49when you and I talked, you said that prison was notorious for its horrible conditions.

03:54So does the CPJ have a sense of how he's holding up?

03:58You know, Evan has been really – he's a very strong person. He has kept his high spirits.

04:09I think partially it's because he knows Russia so well. He knows how the government works,

04:16and he knows that he's innocent, and he is a part of a big game the Kremlin has been

04:24playing with the United States and with the West. And he also knows that we at CPJ and

04:31many other press freedom advocates, his journalist colleagues, his family, everyone

04:39have been supporting him, have been with him emotionally and spiritually. So he's been

04:46very strong in how the whole process, including this judiciary, works in Russia.

04:53And I think he's prepared. I know you're saying you believe

04:57Russia's playing this long game here. He's likely to be convicted. He faces up to 20 years.

05:03What are you looking out for next then, within the trial, after the trial,

05:09anything between now and hopefully his release?

05:14Look, the worst thing about these kind of cases in Russia is that espionage cases are usually

05:20held behind closed doors. So we will know very little about the details of the charges

05:28or the case itself. I hope that the representatives of the U.S. embassy and consulate will be able to

05:37see Evan during the trial, the hearings, but not be present during the entire hearings,

05:44every single one, because they will not be allowed. And it's very normal for Russia to

05:53connect anybody with espionage. Actually, the conviction rate is over 90%.

06:00And there are lots and lots of espionage cases in Russia practically every day. It's usually

06:10the cases that involve Russian citizens, not necessarily foreign citizens and not journalists.

06:18That's why we may not know much about them. But what we know is the conviction rate is very high.

06:25Last year, you said that you hoped that the solution would be political and not legal.

06:31You think that this is a highly politicized case. Can you talk about that?

06:36This is indeed a highly politicized case because even the detention of Evan was approved by

06:44President Putin, as far as we learned from our sources in Russia. He confirmed and he approved

06:51and he has it under his control, as they say, in Russia, which means that he's monitoring it

06:58very closely. His aides reported to him and he knows what exactly he wants out of the deal with

07:06the United States or with the U.S. and other Western countries because one of the potential

07:13individuals that he wants to exchange Evan for is in jail in Germany. I also wanted to add that

07:21the very fact that Evan's case is sent to a court in Yekaterinburg, the city in Siberia where he was

07:30first detained, shows that the Russian authorities try to sort of make it very difficult for U.S.

07:42diplomats and other foreign diplomats to monitor the trial, to be present, even by standing outside

07:50of the courthouse and to sort of decrease the attention to the case as much as they can, but at

07:59the same time they're trying to keep pretending that this is a very legal case where the rules

08:10are followed because according to the Russian criminal code, the case is usually sent to the

08:19court where a crime was allegedly committed. That's why we are going to see Evan in a courtroom

08:26in Yekaterinburg and not in Moscow where he's been held so far. This is really scary, a scary

08:34story for journalists all over the world and particularly in Russia. What is the implication

08:40here for foreign correspondents in Russia? Look, first of all, Evan is not the only American

08:48journalist in Russian jail. There is also Kormasheva, a correspondent of Radio Free Europe,

08:54Radio Liberty, which is a U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster that works editorially independently

09:02from the U.S. authorities, and she's been in detention in Russia since October, also on absurd

09:08charges. As we see these two cases, and also there are other cases of foreign

09:17journalists being kicked out of Russia with their accreditation not being renewed or their visa

09:27not being renewed, we see that there is this witch hunt against foreign media in Russia

09:34after they basically eliminated all independent local media outlets inside the country after the

09:41full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. They went ahead with trying to silence all foreign

09:49correspondents working in Russia, and Evan is a victim of that approach of the Kremlin.

09:56Dr. Golnozha Saeed, thank you so much for the conversation, and I hope the next time we speak

10:02there's a better update here. Thank you so much.

WSJ Reporter Evan Gershkovich To Stand Trial In Russia Next Week — This Is What To Expect

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