Last Friday, a Russian court, operating in secret, convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in a Russian penal colony. Ever since Gershkovich’s arrest in March 2023, I have written extensively about the case: https://www.fff.org/?s=Gershkovich
The Journal and U.S. officials have responded to the verdict and sentence in the same way they have responded ever since Gershkovich’s arrest. They deny that he is a spy and say that he was simply doing his job as a reporter when he was arrested. They also say that Russia is simply engaged in taking Gershkovich hostage so that Russia can trade him for Russians held prisoner by the West.
It might well be true that Gershkovich isn’t a spy, but the problem is that if he is a spy, the Journal and U.S. officials would still deny it. In fact, if Gershkovich was working, say, for the CIA as part of its Operation Mockingbird program, there is a good chance that he would keep his CIA employment secret even from the Journal. That’s the problem that comes with an official policy of lying: Even if Gershkovich isn’t a spy, the CIA’s denials that he is a spy are worthless.
The Journal and U.S. officials point out that Russian officials have never made any of their evidence against Gershkovich public. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. That’s the way Russian officials traditionally behave in cases involving “national security.”
But what’s strange to me is that the Journal and U.S. officials have never provided the public with Gershkovich’s side of the story. Since the time of his arrest, Gershkovich has met with his attorneys and also with officials with the U.S. Embassy. Presumably, he has provided them with the circumstances surrounding his arrest.
In an article last Friday about the case, the Journal reported, “Evan was arrested in a restaurant while on a reporting trip for The Wall Street Journal.” I don’t recall ever reading about his being arrested in “a restaurant” before now. That quoted sentence links to a previous WSJ article, one that has no reference to the restaurant. Unless I’m mistaken, that’s the first time the Journal has provided that detail.
That would imply that Journal officials have some understanding of the circumstances surrounding Gershkovich’s arrest. If so, why keep the totality of those circumstances secret from the American people? It’s one thing for the Russian authorities to maintain such secrecy but why not tell Gershkovich’s side of the story to the public?
In other words, was Gershkovich just eating dinner and doing nothing else when he was arrested? Or it is possible that he was, say, having dinner with someone who provided him with secret documents that related to Russian “national security”? My hunch — and it’s just a hunch — is that Russian officials might have taken a page out of the U.S. government’s criminal-justice playbook and subjected Gershkovich to a classic U.S.-style sting operation. That is, Gershkovich might have been meeting with a “trusted source” who, unbeknownst to Gershkovich, handed over secret documents to him, at which point Russian officials swooped in and arrested him. Again, that’s just my speculation.
But if that’s the case, why wouldn’t Journal officials want people to know that? I suppose one reason would be that it would be embarrassing to U.S. officials since it would be apparent that the Russian authorities were simply copying U.S. criminal-justice techniques. For example, see my recent 3-part article, “The Unjust Conviction of an Innocent Man: The Ian Freeman Case,” in which I relate how an IRS agent tried unsuccessfully to induce an innocent man into committing a crime. Or see my articles on the sting operation that DEA officials sprung on Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in Thailand (here and here) in a successful effort to bring him to the United States, and prosecute, convict, and sentence him to a long jail sentence.
Journal officials and U.S. officials also decry that Gerschovich’s trial was held in secret, unlike criminal trials here in the United States. They overlook something important, however. In the Pentagon-CIA judicial center in Cuba, the trials are also held in secret, to ensure the protection of matters relating to “national security.” In fact, criminal trials in Gitmo are pretty much a mirror image of criminal trials that relate to espionage and “national security” in Russia. Indeed, at Gitmo, defendants can be tortured into confessing to crimes. While I’m sure the same thing happens in Russia, there seems to be no evidence that Gershkovich was tortured into confessing to the crime. I also should point out that at Gitmo, there is no speedy-trial requirement and so people can be held there for life without even being accorded a trial.
It would be great if the Journal would provide Gershkovich’s side of the story, which I believe would be in his interest. It would also be great if the Journal were to criticize the Pentagon-CIA sham trials in Cuba as fiercely as they criticize the Russian sham trial of Gershkovich.