U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was detained and charged by Russian security services last week during a reporting trip Engaging in espionage activities, he believes that the reporter was undoubtedly detained improperly by the Russian side, but the procedure for the US to make an official determination of the reporter’s detention has not yet been completed.
Once the official determination of “wrongful detention” is made, the US government’s efforts to obtain Gershkovic’s release will be accelerated. Oversight of the case will then be handed over to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, a State Department arm that focuses on freeing hostages and others classified as Negotiating with Americans who have been improperly detained in foreign countries.
Speaking to reporters in Brussels, where he was attending a ministerial summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Blinken told reporters in a recent phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that he Expressed his opinion that Gershkovich’s detention was unacceptable and improper, and he also demanded that Russia release Gershkovich and another American detained by Russia on similar charges, Paul Whey Lan (Paul Whelan).
“In Evan’s case, we’re going through the process of finding false detention,” Blinken said. “There’s a process for that and we’re moving very carefully and very quickly.”
Blinken added: “In my personal opinion, there is no doubt that he was wrongfully detained by Russia.”
Blinken said the U.S. had been in talks with Russia for months about a plan to release Whelan, adding that he had told Lavrov that Russia should take action in that regard.
According to official U.S. State Department guidelines, cases of wrongful detention vary, and there is no predetermined method for ensuring the safe release of people wrongfully detained overseas.
Typically, diplomats, lawyers and, where possible, witnesses evaluate all known information about the circumstances of a person’s detention and find out whether and what the evidence is for doing so in the country implementing the detention, and then make relevant identified.
Determinations typically take months, and until embassies have been granted consular access to detainees, this is nearly impossible to accomplish, with few exceptions. It is ultimately up to the secretary of state to decide whether someone has been wrongfully detained.
White House press secretary Karin. Despite repeated requests, representatives of the U.S. embassy in Russia have not been granted consular access to Gershkovich, Karine Jean-Pierre said.
“It may take some time, a few days before the visit,” she told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
She declined to provide a specific time frame for when the government would formally make a finding of wrongful detention. Jean-Pierre said of Blinken’s remarks, “I think it tells you everything you need to know.” She emphasized that the matter is a priority for the US government.
She also declined to say whether President Joe Biden plans to call or meet Gershkovich’s family.
The State Department summoned Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, on March 30 because of Gershkovich’s detention, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday. ). Kirby said Antonov met with Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland.
Lawyers hired by the Journal visited Gershkovich for the first time on Tuesday, nearly a week after he was detained by agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB. The newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, said the lawyers reported that Gershkovic was in good health and expressed gratitude for the support from around the world.
The White House declined to say Tuesday whether the United States would consider a prisoner swap to secure Gershkovic’s release.
The finding of “wrongful detention” will allow U.S. government agencies to begin developing a strategy to secure Gershkovich’s release and will mobilize U.S. government resources to handle the case. The designation would expand the State Department’s powers to pressure Russia, monitor intelligence, build diplomatic alliances, exert public pressure and secure routine consular visits.
The Wall Street Journal strongly denies any wrongdoing by Gershkovich and has called for his immediate release. Gershkovich is accredited by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to work as a journalist in the country.
Gershkovich was detained on March 29 and charged with espionage while interviewing in Yekaterinburg, the state capital about 800 miles east of Moscow. Gershkovich is the first American journalist detained by Russian authorities since 1986 and one of several Americans the United States says have been improperly detained by Russia in recent years.
Gershkovich is being held in Russia’s Lefortovo Prison, a pretrial detention center run by the Russian Federal Security Service. FSB trials are usually held in secret, with little or no disclosure of evidence about the accused’s case.
Gershkovic was escorted by a government-appointed defense lawyer to a court in Moscow last week, and the court ordered him to be detained until May 29.
Blinken said in March that the United States had made a “serious proposal” to secure Whelan’s release from Russia. While the State Department declined to provide details, several U.S. officials have said they have been looking at several Russian prisoners in U.S. custody and offered to trade them for Whelan, a request the Russian government has rejected.
Another detained American, women’s basketball star Brittney Griner, was released home in a prisoner exchange in December that the U.S. government failed to secure Whelan from Russia. free. After Greiner’s release, U.S. officials said Russia refused to negotiate a deal for Whelan’s release unless any prisoner swap would also release a former colonel of a Russian spy organization currently held by Germany.
Griner flew to the United States in December after being released from a Russian exile colony as part of a prisoner exchange for a Russian arms dealer. That prisoner exchange was facilitated in part by the Office of the President’s Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs.
At the Moscow airport in February last year, Gliner’s luggage was found to contain a small amount of cannabis oil, suspected of smuggling and possession of drugs. She was later sentenced to nine years in penal colony for smuggling and drug possession.
U.S. officials said that in the case of Griner’s detention, the Russian government delayed allowing routine visits by U.S. consular personnel, and Griner did not see representatives of the U.S. embassy for several months.
The U.S. State Department believes Whelan was also wrongfully detained. Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan, was arrested in December 2018 while attending a friend’s wedding in Russia. He was sentenced to 16 years in exile in Russia and remains imprisoned. Whelan’s family said the allegations against him were false.
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