Moscow court rejects Evan Gershkovich's appeal, keeping him in jail until at least June 30

MOSCOW (AP) — Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will remain jailed on espionage charges until at least late June, after a Moscow court on Tuesday rejected his appeal that sought to end his pretrial detention.

The 32-year-old U.S. citizen was detained in late March 2023 while on a reporting trip and has spent over a year in jail, with authorities routinely extending his time behind bars and rejecting his appeals. Last month, his pretrial detention was continued yet again — until June 30 — in a ruling that he and his lawyers later challenged. A Moscow appellate court rejected it Tuesday.

In the courtroom on Tuesday, Gerhskovich, wearing a white T-shirt and an open checked shirt, looked relaxed, at times laughing and chatting with members of his legal team.

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 espionage charges.

Gershkovich and his employer have denied the allegations, and the U.S. government has declared him to be wrongfully detained.

Analysts have pointed out that Moscow may be using jailed Americans as bargaining chips in soaring U.S.-Russian tensions over the Kremlin’s military operation in Ukraine. At least two U.S. citizens arrested in Russia in recent years — including WNBA star Brittney Griner — have been exchanged for Russians jailed in the U.S.

In December, the U.S. 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.

Officials did not describe the offer, although Russia has been said to be seeking the release of Vadim Krasikov, who was given a life sentence in Germany in 2021 for the killing in Berlin of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen of Chechen descent who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya and later claimed asylum in Germany.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, asked this year about releasing Gershkovich, appeared to refer to Krasikov by pointing to a man imprisoned by a U.S. ally for “liquidating a bandit” who had allegedly killed Russian soldiers during separatist fighting in Chechnya.

Beyond that hint, Russian officials have kept mum about the talks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeatedly said that while “certain contacts” on swaps continue, “they must be carried out in absolute silence.”

Gershkovich is the first American reporter to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since September 1986, when Nicholas Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for U.S. News and World Report, was arrested by the KGB.

Daniloff was released without charge 20 days later in a swap for an employee of the Soviet Union’s U.N. mission who was arrested by the FBI, also on spying charges.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich gestures in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. A court will considers an appeal against the arrest of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich who was detained on espionage charges in Yekaterinburg last year. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich speaks with his lawyers standing in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. A court will considers an appeal against the arrest of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich who was detained on espionage charges in Yekaterinburg last year. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. A court will considers an appeal against the arrest of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich who was detained on espionage charges in Yekaterinburg last year. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. A court will considers an appeal against the arrest of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich who was detained on espionage charges in Yekaterinburg last year. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich speaks with his lawyers standing in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. A court will considers an appeal against the arrest of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich who was detained on espionage charges in Yekaterinburg last year. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. A court will consider an appeal against the arrest of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained on espionage charges in Yekaterinburg last year. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. A court will considers an appeal against the arrest of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich who was detained on espionage charges in Yekaterinburg last year. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich speaks with his lawyers standing in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. A court will considers an appeal against the arrest of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich who was detained on espionage charges in Yekaterinburg last year. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich speaks with his lawyer standing in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. A court will considers an appeal against the arrest of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich who was detained on espionage charges in Yekaterinburg last year. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the First Appeals Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. A court will consider an appeal against the arrest of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained on espionage charges in Yekaterinburg last year. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to mend ties with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday and offered measured optimism about progress toward a cease-fire deal for Gaza as he neared the end of a contentious U.S. visit that put on display the growing American divisions over support for the Israeli-Hamas war.

At Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, where the two men met face-to-face for the first time in nearly four years, Netanyahu told journalists he wanted to see U.S.-mediated talks succeed for a cease-fire and release of hostages.

“I hope so,” Netanyahu said, when reporters asked if his U.S. trip had made progress. While Netanyahu at home is increasingly accused of resisting a deal to end the 9-month-old war to stave off the potential collapse of his far-right government when it ends, he said Friday he was "certainly eager to have one. And we’re working on it.”

As president, Trump went well beyond his predecessors in fulfilling Netanyahu’s top wishes from the United States. Yet relations soured after Netanyahu became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden for his 2020 presidential victory, which Trump continues to deny.

The two men now have a strong interest in restoring their relationship, both for the political support their alliance brings and for the luster it gives each with their conservative supporters.

A beaming Trump was waiting for Netanyahu on the stone steps outside his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida. He warmly clasped the hands of the Israeli leader.

“We’ve always had a great relationship,” Trump insisted before journalists. Asked as the two sat down in a muraled room for talks if Netanyahu’s trip to Mar-a-Lago was repairing their bond, Trump responded, “It was never bad.”

For both men, Friday’s meeting was aimed at highlighting for their home audiences their depiction of themselves as strong leaders who have gotten big things done on the world stage, and can again.

Netanyahu’s Florida trip followed a fiery address to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday that defended his government’s conduct of the war and condemned American protesters galvanized by the killing of more than 39,000 Palestinians in the conflict.

On Thursday, Netanyahu had met in Washington with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who appears on track to becoming the new Democratic presidential nominee after Biden decided to step out of the race. Both pressed the Israeli leader to work quickly to wrap up a deal to bring a cease-fire and release hostages held by Hamas.

Trump’s campaign said he pledged in Friday's meeting to “make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East” and combat antisemitism on college campuses if American voters elect him to the presidency in November.

Netanyahu handed Trump a framed photo that the Israeli leader said showed a child who has been held hostage by Hamas-led militants since the first hours of the war. “We’ll get it taken care of,” Trump assured him.

In a speech later Friday before a group of young Christian conservatives, Trump said he also asked Netanyahu during their meeting how “a Jewish person, or a person that loves Israel” can vote for Democrats.

He also laced into Harris for missing Netanyahu's speech and claimed she “doesn’t like Jewish people” and “doesn’t like Israel." Harris has been married to a Jewish man for a decade.

For Trump, the meeting was a chance to be cast as an ally and statesman, as well as to sharpen efforts by Republicans to portray themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.

Divisions among Americans over U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza have opened cracks in years of strong bipartisan backing for Israel, the biggest recipient of U.S. aid.

For Netanyahu, repairing relations with Trump is imperative given the prospect that Trump may once again become president of the United States, which is Israel’s vital arms supplier and protector.

One gamble for Netanyahu is whether he could get more of the terms he wants in any deal on a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release, and in his much hoped-for closing of a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, if he waits out the Biden administration in hopes that Trump wins.

“Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his career in the last two decades in tethering himself to the Republican Party,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat for Arab-Israeli negotiations, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

For the next six months, that means “mending ties with an irascible, angry president," Miller said, meaning Trump.

Netanyahu and Trump last met at a September 2020 White House signing ceremony for the signature diplomatic achievement of both men’s political careers. It was an accord brokered by the Trump administration in which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel.

For Israel, it amounted to the two countries formally recognizing it for the first time. It was a major step in what Israel hoped would be an easing of tensions and a broadening of economic ties with its Arab neighbors.

In public postings and statements after his break with Netanyahu, Trump portrayed himself as having stuck his neck out for Israel as president, and Netanyahu paying him back with disloyalty.

He also has criticized Netanyahu on other points, faulting him as “not prepared” for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that started the war in Gaza, for example.

In his high-profile speech to Congress on Wednesday and again Friday at Mar-a-Lago, Netanyahu poured praise on Trump, calling the regional accords Trump helped broker historic and thanking him “for all the things he did for Israel.”

Netanyahu listed actions by the Trump administration long-sought by Israeli governments — the U.S. officially saying Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during a 1967 war; a tougher U.S. policy toward Iran; and Trump declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with longstanding U.S. policy that Jerusalem's status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

“I appreciated that,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, referring to Netanyahu's praise.

Trump has repeatedly urged that Israel with U.S. support “finish the job” in Gaza and destroy Hamas, but he hasn’t elaborated on how.

Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, Adriana Gomez Licon in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Jill Colvin in New York contributed. Knickmeyer reported from Washington. Price reported from New York.

Follow the AP's coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Turning Point Believers' Summit, Friday, July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump listens as he meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks while meeting with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

FILE - President Donald Trump, right, meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office, Sept. 15, 2020, at the White House in Washington. Trump is due to talk face-to-face with Netanyahu for the first time in nearly four years. The meeting Friday, July 26, 2024, at Mar-a-Lago will mend a break that has lasted since 2021. Trump at the time blasted Netanyahu for being one of the first leaders to congratulate President Joe Biden for his election victory. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)