The situation of the imprisoned ‘Wall Street Journal’ reporter, the Jew Evan Gershkovich in Russia for the crime of espionage, Lot in the fog, lawyers with experience in the Russian legal process predict a gloomy future. As in the US and Western courts, Gershkovich is guaranteed a lawyer in Russia. But in practice, when he met with his lawyer, the conversations were monitored and eavesdropped, say experts who follow legal developments in Russia.
The White House has said the release of Evan Gershkovich is a top priority for President Biden, lawyers have visited the jailed Wall Street Journal reporter nearly a week after Russian authorities arrested him on espionage charges. “These allegations are ridiculous. Owen is not a spy,” White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday.
“This is a case that is a top priority for the president,” said Jean-Pierre, adding that the US will continue to press for his release and obtain consular access to him. Representatives from the US embassy were not granted consular access to Gershkovich. The newspaper strongly denies the charge against Gershkovich and continues to call for his immediate release.
Gershkovich’s lawyers met with him in prison on Tuesday. “They said Evan’s health is good, and he’s grateful for the outpouring of support from around the world,” said Emma Tucker, editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal.
Russian law also guarantees defendants the right to a jury trial open to public scrutiny. But in the case of espionage cases, the accused is expected to be tried in secret before a judge, so reports the Wall Street Journal, which launched a campaign to free the journalist Evan Gershkowitz, the son of a Jewish couple who escaped from the Iron Curtain, Evan was arrested on a far-fetched charge of espionage.
In Russia’s judicial system, such judges are “subject to the influence of the executive branch, the armed forces and other security forces, especially in high-profile or politically sensitive cases,” according to a recent State Department report on Russia’s human rights practices.
When asked about Gershkovich’s case on Monday at a press conference marking the start of Russia’s month-long presidency of the UN Security Council, the Russian representative defended the country’s legal process, which lacks press freedom. “Believe it or not,” said Vasily Nevanzia, We have separation of powers in Russia.” American diplomats will be given access to the jailed reporter, Nevanzia said, “but at what stage and when I have no idea. It is subject to the decision of the authorities in Moscow.”
Russia accused Gershkovich, who was arrested in the city of Yekaterinburg last week, of espionage. The newspaper strongly denies that Gershkovich is a spy. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday that Gershkovich’s arrest was based on “ridiculous allegations.”
Gershkovich was in Russia on a journalist’s visa and carried a press permit issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry. He was not allowed to meet with a lawyer. Russia’s state media supported his arrest on the grounds that the US is involved in the war in Ukraine, sending undercover agents into Russia’s hinterland to gather information on its weapons production.
Ivan Pavlov, a Russian lawyer who specializes in such cases, tells the newspaper that in 2015, prosecutors dropped treason charges against one of his clients, he said – a 37-year-old woman with seven children arrested for telling the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow a year earlier that Russian soldiers might be on their way to eastern Ukraine .
She made the remarks after riding a bus where she overheard a conversation from a soldier from a nearby military base who had been sent to Ukraine, he said. Russia denied it had troops in Ukraine at the time. In 2017, Pavlov helped three women from the town of Sochi get amnesty after they were convicted of treason after seeing a train loaded with military equipment. They sent messages to their relatives in the former Soviet republic of Georgia for fear of war.
Pavlov notes that in some cases he pressured journalists to take an interest in the convictions. When one of them asked Putin about the incident with the three women at a press conference, Putin said he did not understand the reason for the conviction. Putin later pardoned the women.
In 2021, Pavlov left Russia when the Secret Service told him he was under investigation for representing Ivan Sparnov, a journalist charged with treason for revealing military secrets. Pavlov said he was also suspected of revealing classified information. Sparnov, who was later found guilty, was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Pavlov, who has never been charged with a crime, now lives in Germany.
If the proceedings against Gershkovich are anything like other cases, they are likely to be secretive and tedious, said Pavlov, who has witnessed several trials. In the past, he said, the evidence against his clients was flimsy and in some cases based on the testimony of a single Russian security service officer, who interpreted his client’s actions as espionage.
Gershkovic could also be convicted on the basis of such evidence, he said. “In a normal court system, nobody would accept this kind of evidence,” he said. “But in Russia it can be, everything they have will be enough.”