Follow live the latest news about the war in Ukraine
Follow live the latest news about the war in Ukraine
10 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The US State Department has reported on Monday that it has officially classified the case of ‘The Wall Street Journal’ journalist Evan Greshkovich, imprisoned in Russia, as “unfair imprisonment”.
“Today, Secretary (of State, Antony) Blinken has concluded that Evan Gershkovich is wrongly imprisoned by Russia,” said Vedant Patel, vice spokesman for the State Department, according to .
With this position, Washington implies that the espionage charges of which Gershkovich is accused are unfounded and authorizes the US official organizations to explore all avenues to obtain his release. “The United States government will give all appropriate support to Mr. Gershkovich and his family,” added Patel.
Thus, Gershkovich’s case will be handled by the Office of the Presidential Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, in the same way that the cases of Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner were both considered cases of wrongful imprisonment. The two were able to return to the United States after separate prisoner exchanges. However, Paul Whelan remains locked up in Russia despite being accused of wrongful imprisonment.
“We call on the Russian Federation to immediately release Mr. Gershkovich and we also call on Russia to release the wrongly imprisoned US citizen Paul Whelan,” Patel stressed.
The Russian authorities detained the journalist at the request of the Lefortovo court, in the city of Yekaterinburg. Gershkovich had been gathering information about the Wagner Group, owned by oligarch Yevgeni Prigozhin, who is considered a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and who has sent mercenaries to Ukraine.
The last article by the journalist, who faces a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison, was published by ‘The Wall Street Journal’ and dates from March 28 under the headline ‘Russia’s economy is beginning to unravel’.
Gershkovich previously worked for the French news agency AFP and the Russian newspaper ‘The Moscow Times’. Likewise, he has published in ‘The New York Times’, ‘The Economist’, ‘MIT Technology Review’, ‘Foreign Policy’ and Politico Europe, among other media, according to his website.
