The Moscow City Court has rejected U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich's appeal against his pretrial detention on charges of espionage, which he, his newspaper The Wall Street Journal, and the U.S. government have strongly denied.
Although the June 22 hearing was held behind closed doors, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy and representatives of several other diplomatic missions in Moscow were allowed to attend.
The first American journalist detained in Russia on espionage charges since the end of the Cold War, the 31-year-old faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
"Despite Russian officials' public assertions about Evan's activities, let me reiterate the U.S. government's firm position: the charges against Evan are baseless. He is an innocent journalist who was carrying out journalistic activities and has been wrongfully detained," Tracey said in a statement.
"Such hostage diplomacy is unacceptable, and we call on the Russian Federation to release him, as well as Paul Whelan, another U.S. citizen who has been wrongfully detained. We call for that release to occur immediately."
Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, was arrested in December 2018, held for 18 months in Lefortovo prison in Moscow, and then jailed for 16 years on spying charges, which he and the U.S. government deny.
The Wall Street Journal said in a statement that although the court's June 22 decision was expected, "it is no less an outrage" that Gershkovich's "detention continues to be upheld."
"Evan has been wrongfully detained for more than 12 weeks for nothing more than doing his job as a journalist. We continue to demand his immediate release," the newspaper's statement said.
Gershkovich was arrested in March and accused by the FSB security service of collecting military secrets in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
In late May, the Lefortovo district court in Moscow extended Gershkovich's pretrial detention until at least August 30.
Washington has declared Gershkovich to be wrongfully detained and demanded his immediate release.
The reporter's detention comes at a time when relations between Moscow and Washington are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War over the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said at the time of the journalist's arrest in March that it had opened an espionage case against Gershkovich for collecting what it said were state secrets about the military-industrial complex.
Gershkovich was then placed in pretrial detention in Moscow's Lefortovo prison, a notorious institution dating back to tsarist times. Seen as a symbol of Soviet repression, Lefortovo is where Russia holds most suspects in espionage cases.
The Kremlin has said Gershkovich was carrying out espionage "under the cover" of journalism.
Hired by The Wall Street Journal shortly before Moscow's invasion of Ukraine last year, Gershkovich had been reporting on Russia for more than five years at the time of his arrest.
The 31-year-old is a fluent Russian-speaker, the son of emigres who left the Soviet Union for the United States during the Cold War.