FALSELY imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will remain in prison on bogus espionage charges, a Russian court has ruled.
The 32-year-old US citizen was cruelly detained in late March 2023 while on a reporting trip and has spent over a year behind bars without a trial.
Authorities have routinely extended his time behind bars and rejected his appeals - meaning he has now spent over 365 days in prison.
His pretrial detention was continued yet again until June 30 in a ruling that he and his lawyers challenged.
In the courtroom on Tuesday, brave Gerhskovich, wearing a white T-shirt and an open checked shirt, looked relaxed, at times laughing and chatting with members of his legal team.
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He gave a heroic thumbs up as he appeared behind a glass screen for his latest appeal to be rejected with no date set for a trial.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Gershkovich replied "all clear" when asked by the judge whether he understood the court's decision.
The newspaper said in a statement: "It continues to be outrageous that Evan has been wrongfully detained by the Russian government for more than a year.
"Evans' freedom is long overdue, and we urge the (Biden) administration to do everything in their power to secure his release."
His arrest in the city of Yekaterinburg rattled journalists in Russia, where authorities have not detailed what if any, evidence they have to support the trumped up espionage charges.
Putin's spy service alleged that the reporter, acting on the instructions of the US, collected secret information about a Russian military-industrial complex.
Gershkovich and the Wall Street Journal have vehemently denied the allegations, and the US government has declared him to be wrongfully detained.
He has been held for more than a year at Moscow's high-security Lefortovo prison, which is closely associated with Putin's FSB.
Experts have pointed out that Moscow is using jailed Americans as bargaining chips in soaring tensions with the US over the Ukraine war.
In December, the US State Department said it had made a significant offer to secure the release of Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, another American imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges, which it said Moscow had rejected.
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He is the first Western reporter to be jailed on espionage charges in Russia since the Soviet era, and he faces a prison term of up to 20 years if convicted.
President Joe Biden said last month on the anniversary of Gershkovich's arrest: "We will continue to denounce and impose costs for Russia's appalling attempts to use Americans as bargaining chips."
