Lawyers representing American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was detained last week in Russia on espionage charges widely seen as politically motivated, met with their client for the first time on April 4 in a Moscow prison, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said.
“Evan’s health is good, and he is grateful for the outpouring of support from around the world. We continue to call for his immediate release,” WSJ Editor in Chief Emma Tucker said in a note to the newsroom quoted by Reuters.
She said the paper was encouraged by the visit, and Gershkovich's family is “relieved to know we finally have contact with Evan.”
Moscow’s Lefortovsky district court said on April 3 that it had received an appeal filed by his defense against his arrest, according to Russian news agencies. No date for a hearing on the appeal has been set. On March 30, a court agreed to a request from the Federal Security Service (FSB) to hold Gershkovich under arrest for two months.
A group of Russian independent journalists and public figures earlier on April 4 called on authorities to release Gershkovich.
In a letter published by the independent Latvia-based Dozhd TV channel, the Russian journalists say the espionage accusations brought against the 31-year-old Moscow-based correspondent by the FSB, the main successor of the Soviet-era KGB security agency, are unfounded and not to be trusted.
Gershkovich was detained in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, where he was reporting about the attitude of Russians toward the Kremlin's war against Ukraine and on the Wagner mercenary group.
The FSB said that on instructions from the United States, Gershkovich "was collecting information about one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex, which constitutes a state secret."
The White House and the WSJ have denied the allegations.
The letter from the group of Russian independent journalists said the FSB claims that Gershkovich "acted on instructions from the United States and collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex."
"However, this statement is not supported by anything -- we are told to trust the word of the state security investigation," it adds.
Its authors recall the case of journalist Ivan Safronov, also convicted on charges of treason, arguing that he was convicted for journalistic activities, but did not commit a crime.
Safronov was sentenced to 22 years in prison in September 2022 after he was found guilty of handing secret materials to foreign agents in a case also widely considered to be politically motivated.
"The similarity of the circumstances of this new 'spy' case with the case of Safronov raises doubts about the credibility of the charge brought against Evan Gershkovich," the journalists write.
They also express support for foreign correspondents who "take risks by continuing to work in Russia."
The letter bears the signatures of Sergei Parkhomenko, Aleksandr Plyushchev, Zhenya Nemtsova, Mikhail Zygar, Galina Timchenko, Tikhon Dzyadko, Sergei Smirnov, Lyubov Sobol, and other independent journalists as well as public figures.
During a rare phone call, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on April 2 to release Gershkovich.