Russian Judge Who Convicted Gershkovich Says Court Did Not Examine Material Evidence

The Russian judge who convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich said the trial was short because the court did not examine any “material evidence” and the verdict did not take long because he could “type quickly.”

“The case itself was small. I don’t remember how many folders there were, three or five,” Judge Andrei Mineyev was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

“Why did it go so quickly? The thing is, the court did not examine material evidence,” Mineyev said, adding neither the prosecution nor the defense had requested to consider case materials.

The judge made the comments at a conference in the city of Yekaterinburg, where he spoke about different cases he had worked on during his career, Russian media reported.

Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg, making him the first foreign journalist held for espionage in Russia since the Soviet period.

His trial in Yekaterinburg, which was held behind closed doors because of the nature of the charges, began in June 2024. Prosecutors accused him of gathering secret information about a tank factory.

In July, Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in prison and then released two weeks later in the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War.

Mineyev said he was “100-200%” certain that Gershkovich was “at the same time a journalist, a spy and a CIA agent,” the Kommersant business daily quoted him as saying.

The judge added that he quickly reached a decision on the ruling against Gershkovich since he could “type quickly.”