U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich jailed for 16 years by court in Russia

American journalist Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum security prison by a Russian court Friday after he was found guilty of espionage in a case that his employer, The Wall Street Journal, and condemned as a sham.

Gershkovich, 32, denied any wrongdoing in the case that went to trial last month in the city of Yekaterinburg over a year after he was arrested in the southern Russian city on espionage charges.

The Sverdlovsk Region Court’s press service told NBC News in a telephone interview that the state prosecutor had requested Gershkovich be sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment during closing arguments.

In a separate announcement, the court said Gershkovich had been found guilty of collecting secret information about the activities of a defense enterprise for the production and repair of military equipment on instructions from U.S. intelligence services.

Sverdlovsk Region Court’s judge Andrei Mineyev remanded Gershkovich in custody until his sentence can be legally enforced. The journalist is also expected to cover the legal fees, amounting to just over $75.

His defense team has 15 days to appeal the sentence.

Russia has never published any no clear evidence supporting its claims against Gershkovich.

And Jay Conti, executive vice president and general counsel for Dow Jones, WSJ’s publisher, condemned the trial as a “sham” based on “bogus charges that are completely trumped up” in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

The U.S. government has also condemned the charges against Gershkovich and said he was wrongfully detained.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly called on his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to release the journalist, who was arrested during a reporting trip. In the weeks after Gershkovich’s arrest, Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference that the U.S. would do “everything in its power” to bring the journalist home.

Gershkovich’s detention also became a point of contention in the U.S. presidential race, with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump claiming in May that he could get Putin to free Gershkovich if elected. His comments drew swift backlash from Biden’s campaign.

Prior to Friday’s conviction and sentencing, Russia had repeatedly extended Gershkovich’s detainment that has been condemned by journalists and government officials across the West, who see it as emblematic of the war Putin has waged against freedom of speech both in Russia and abroad.

Putin has signaled in the past that he believes a deal could be struck to free Gershkovich.

A possible exchange had been in the works that could have resulted in the releases of Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, sources told NBC News in February.

The swap was not thought to be imminent when Navalny’s death in an Arctic penal colony was announced that month, five sources told NBC News.

At previous court appearances in both Moscow and Yekaterinburg, Gershkovich has often smiled and appeared in good spirits. But his detention has weighed on his family.

“It has been hard,” his father, Mikhail Gershkovich, told NBC News in March to mark the anniversary of his arrest. “He spent all four seasons there. He spent his birthday and all the holidays. We want him home as soon as possible.”

His parents left what was then the Soviet Union for the U.S. during the Cold War. Gershkovich and his older sister grew up speaking Russian at home, and the family calls him “Vanya,” the diminutive for his Russian name, Ivan. 

His interest in Russia motivated his decision to move there in 2017 to work as a journalist.

But everything changed when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the family said. Like many other foreign reporters wary of Russia’s tightening grip on press freedom, Gershkovich moved abroad, albeit regularly returning for reporting trips.