Evan Gershkovich, the first American journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War, has been found guilty of spying and sentenced to 16 years in prison by a Russian court, in a case that the US government, his newspaper and supporters have denounced as a sham.

The court in Yekaterinburg announced the guilty verdict and sentencing on Friday shortly after 3 p.m. local time (8 a.m. ET).

The court heard closing arguments and 32-year-old Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, delivered his closing remarks behind closed doors on Friday morning.

The case’s rapid conclusion comes just weeks after Gershkovich first appeared in a glass cage with his head recently shaved at the start of his trial on June 26. On that day, Gershkovich stood cross-armed, occasionally smiling and waving to the crowd of reporters.

The speed of the trial has raised questions over whether the Kremlin is intending to use him as part of a prisoner swap deal with the United States, suggestions which spokesman Dmitry Peskov left without comment when asked about them on a Friday conference call ahead of the verdict announcement.

In June, Moscow confirmed again that contacts are ongoing regarding a potential prisoner exchange deal for Gershkovich, but Peskov repeatedly insisted that those conversations were to be carried out in “absolute silence” to prevent complications.

Gershkovich was arrested while reporting for the WSJ, during a trip to Yekaterinburg in March 2023, and later accused of spying for the CIA. Russian authorities have never offered any public evidence to support their claims.

Within two weeks of his arrest in March 2023, the US State Department designated him as wrongfully detained and called for his immediate release.

In a statement following Friday’s sentencing, Gershkovich’s employer said: “This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist.

“We will continue to do everything possible to press for Evan’s release and to support his family,” the statement from Dow Jones CEO and Wall Street Journal Publisher Almar Latour and Wall Street Journal Editor in Chief Emma Tucker continued.

“Journalism is not a crime, and we will not rest until he’s released. This must end now,” it added.

At the United Nations Security Council on Friday, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield Ambassador also raised Gershkovich’s case. “Let me begin with the news coming out of Russia this morning. Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years. He has committed no crime. He is being punished because he is a journalist, and he is an American. Simple as that,” she said.

Journalist advocacy group, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), joined the chorus of criticism, pointing out Russia’s current record as the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 22 currently behind bars.

“Journalists are not pawns in geopolitical games. It’s time to stop hostage diplomacy and free him immediately,” CPJ Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna said in a statement.

15 days to appeal

The verdict has yet to enter into force, and the defense can appeal the conviction within 15 days, judge Andrey Mineyev said while delivering his verdict. The court also ordered Gershkovich to pay procedural costs of 6,708 rubles ($77), and for some of his personal items, including an iPhone and a notepad, to be destroyed.

According to the judge, the time Gershkovich has already spent in detention since last March will count towards his sentence.

Following his arrest, Gershkovich was held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison, spending almost every hour of the day in a small cell, before being transferred to the city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals more than 1,100 miles east of the capital. He passed the time by writing letters to his friends and family, his parents said in an interview with the WSJ, adding that he was allowed just one hour of walking per day.

Gershkovich, the US government, and the WSJ have vehemently denied the charges against him.

US and Western officials have accused Russia of using Gershkovich and other jailed foreigners as bargaining chips for possible prisoner exchanges.

A high-profile swap in 2022 saw US basketball star Brittney Griner exchanged for arms dealer Viktor Bout. But Russia refused to release another jailed US citizen, Paul Whelan, as it was seeking a former colonel from Russia’s domestic spy organization in return.

In an interview with right-wing US media personality Tucker Carlson in February, Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested “an agreement can be reached” with the United States to release Gershkovich and alluded to the case of a Russian national convicted of carrying out an assassination in Berlin in 2019.

The trial of Gershkovich, the American-born son of Soviet-era emigres to the US, has highlighted the extent to which Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has harmed relations between Moscow and Washington.

In their indictment, Russian prosecutors said that “under instructions from the CIA” and “using painstaking conspiratorial methods,” Gershkovich “was collecting secret information” about a Russian tank factory.

This story has been updated.