A Russian court has sentenced American journalist Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison after convicting him for espionage in a closed-door trial, state media reports.

The 32-year-old correspondent for The Wall Street Journal pleaded not guilty and his employer and the United States have denounced the charges as fabricated.

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Gershkovich was arrested on March 29, 2023, while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg.

He was accused by prosecutors of gathering secret information about Uralvagonzavod, a plant manufacturing tanks for Russia’s war in Ukraine, on the orders of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

He is the first Western journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in post-Soviet Russia.

Gerschkovich, his newspaper and the US government say he was just doing his job, with accreditation from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The prosecution had earlier asked the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg for an 18-year sentence.

Closed-trials are standard in Russia for cases of treason or espionage involving classified material. Gershkovich’s trial has moved rapidly since the first hearing in late June.

More to come …