Verdict due on US journalist Evan Gershkovich amid hopes of prisoner swap

A Russian court is set to announce a verdict and sentence on Evan Gershkovich on Friday afternoon, after an unusually brisk trial that raises hopes of a prisoner swap involving the American journalist.

Earlier on Friday, the prosecution asked for an 18-year jail term for the Wall Street Journal correspondent, on charges of espionage. Gershkovich, 32, has denied the charges. He pleaded not guilty on Friday, according to Russian news agencies.

Gershkovich was arrested while reporting in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg last March, becoming the first US journalist since the cold war to be accused of spying in Russia. He has been held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison, but was returned to Yekaterinburg for trial.

Moscow says Gershkovich was collecting secret information about Russia’s military capacities on the orders of the CIA, a claim he, the Wall Street Journal and the US state department have dismissed as ludicrous. He had been granted official accreditation to work as a journalist by the Russian foreign ministry.

“Even as Russia orchestrates its shameful sham trial, we continue to do everything we can to push for Evan’s immediate release,” the Wall Street Journal said on Thursday.

The US embassy in Moscow said: “Regardless of what Russian authorities claim, Evan is a journalist. He did not commit any illegal actions. Russian authorities have been unable to provide evidence that he committed a crime or justification for Evan’s continued detention.”

The trial is being held behind closed doors, common in espionage cases. Journalists were allowed briefly into the courtroom when it began last month when Gershkovich, with his head shaved as per Russian regulations, smiled and nodded from the defendants’ glass box. The media are expected to be let back in to the courtroom for the verdict.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, claimed on Wednesday that Moscow had “irrefutable evidence” Gershkovich was involved in espionage, but gave no details. Russian authorities have made nothing public that would suggest guilt, and many see the arrest as an attempt to use jailed Americans as bargaining chips in an exchange for Russian intelligence operatives and assassins held in western jails.

The speed of the case, with this week’s hearings brought forward by more than a month and the prosecution racing through witness testimony in an afternoon, may indicate that a long-discussed swap deal is close. Russia usually concludes court proceedings in such instances before a swap.

Vladimir Putin, in an interview in February with the US broadcaster Tucker Carlson, said discussions on a swap were under way. “The special services are in contact with one another. They are talking … I believe an agreement can be reached,” the president said.

He hinted that Russia would like to exchange Gershkovich for Vadim Krasikov, who is serving time in a German jail for assassinating a Chechen exile in Berlin in 2019.