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Moscow Court arrests WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich over espionage case

The detainee pleaded not guilty

© Sergei Savostyanov/TASS

MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/. Moscow’s Lefortovsky District Court arrested The Wall Street Journal reporter, US national Evan Gershkovich, who was previously apprehended in Yekaterinburg, over espionage charges, a source in the law enforcement told TASS Thursday.

"The Lefortovsky Court of Moscow picked a prevention measure for Gershkovich, suspected of espionage, in form of detention," the source said.

The court itself categorically refused to provide any comments.

The law enforcement also disclosed that Gershkovich’s case has been classified as ‘top secret’ because of the "relevant information contained in the case."

The detainee pleaded not guilty.

Earlier on Thursday, the FSB Public Relations Center told TASS that Evan Gershkovich, "acting at the behest of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of an enterprise within Russia’s military-industrial complex." The reporter was detained in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. The FSB investigators opened a criminal case against the US citizen under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Espionage").

In light of this, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a statement expressing deep concern for the safety of Gershkovich. According to the WSJ, Gershkovich covers Russia from his post at the newspaper’s Moscow bureau.

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