Prosecutors had asked for a lengthy sentence in the trial of US reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is charged with spying. The proceedings were speedy, prompting speculation about a possible prisoner swap.
Gershkovich was arrested at a steakhouse in March last year and has been in custody since
The fast-tracked Russian espionage trial of US reporter Evan Gershkovich reached its final stages at the Sverdlovsk Regional Court on Friday, in a case that Washington has condemned as a sham.
The court sentenced him to 16 years in “a strict regime colony,” Judge Andrei Mineyev said.
The 32-year-old Wall Street Journal correspondent is the first Western journalist in Russia to have been charged with spying since the Soviet era.
“This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist,” Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour and its editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, said in a joint statement after the verdict was read out.
