A Russian court this week extended the pretrial detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich for the fifth time; on that basis, Gershkovich, a native of New Jersey, is set to be detained at least until June 30.
The Wall Street Journal newsroom this week held a 24-hour read-a-thon to mark the one year anniversary of Gershkovich’s detention.
“It’s really a tragedy that Evan’s been held for this amount of time,” said Roger Carstens, the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, in an interview with NJ Spotlight News.
Regarding negotiations to free Gershkovich, Carstens said, “I can’t really get into the details because it’s not helpful to negotiate in public, but I can tell you that we did put a strong offer out to the Russians last year and the Russians rejected it.”
