Updated with AFP report.
The espionage trial of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich resumed on Thursday morning behind closed doors in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, local media reported.
The hearing was originally set to resume on Aug. 13, but Gershkovich’s defense lawyers had requested the date be moved up.
Thursday’s hearing is closed to the press and media will only have access to Gershkovich when a verdict is announced, according to the Sverdlovsk Regional Court.
Court bailiffs on Thursday refused entry to the British Consul General in Yekaterinburg Ameer Kotecha, according to the local E1.ru news outlet.
AFP later reported that the court plans to hear closing arguments in the trial on Friday morning.
“Tomorrow there will be a hearing at 10:30 [local time], there will be closing arguments,” Ekaterina Maslennikova, who heads Sverdlovsk Regional Court press service, told AFP outside the court on Thursday afternoon.
Russia’s prosecutor general last month accused Gershkovich of working for the CIA and “collecting secret information” about tank maker Uralvagonzavod in the Sverdlovsk region where he was arrested.
Gershkovich, a former reporter for The Moscow Times, faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years if he is convicted of spying. The 32-year-old American, the WSJ and the U.S. government deny the accusations.
Speaking at the UN headquarters late Wednesday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow had “irrefutable evidence” of Gershkovich’s guilt without providing further details.
AFP contributed reporting.