There is "no doubt" that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is being held in Russia and accused of spying, has been wrongfully detained, but the United States is still "working through" coming to an official determination, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.
"There is a process to do that and it's something we are working through very deliberately but expeditiously as well," Blinken said in Brussels, where he is attending a ministerial summit for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Once an official designation is reached, Gershkovich's case would be supervised through the State Department's Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, which negotiates for the release of hostages and other Americans who are classified as being wrongly detained in foreign countries.
Blinken told reporters that he has spoken with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and has expressed his views on Gershkovich's detainment and demanded that the journalist be released as well as another American, Paul Whelan, who has been held in Russia for several months.
Making an official determination about a wrongful detainment can take several months and often is not done before the country's embassy has access to the detained individual, and the ultimate decision for a designation rests with the secretary of state.
Tuesday, lawyers hired by The Wall Street Journal visited Gershkovich for the first time since he was detained by agents of the Russian Federal Security Service, or the FSB. They reported he is in good health and grateful for worldwide support, Emma Tucker, the newspaper's editor-in-chief said.
The newspaper has denied any wrongdoing on Gershkovich's part and is calling for his immediate release. Russia's Foreign Ministry has accredited him to work as a journalist in the country.
However, U.S. Embassy representatives in Moscow have not been permitted to visit Gershkovich.
The White House on Tuesday said the journalist's release is a priority for President Joe Biden.
"These charges are ridiculous," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
"Evan isn't a spy. Evan has never been a spy. Evan has never worked for the U.S. government, and he is an independent journalist employed by The Wall Street Journal."
However, the White House wouldn't say if the United States is considering a prisoner swap for Gershkovich.
The journalist was detained on March 29 and accused of espionage in the Russian provincial city of Yekaterinburg, located about 800 miles east of Moscow. He's being held at Russia's Lefortovo Prison, an FSB pretrial detention center.
He appeared in court in Moscow with a state-appointed defense attorney and was ordered to be held until May 29.
Meanwhile, Whelan, who was arrested in December 2018 while visiting Russia for a friend's wedding, has been determined as being wrongfully detained but remains in custody after being sentenced to serve 16 years in a Russian penal colony.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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