Editorial: Gershkovich conviction could spark prisoner deal, but don't forget Fogel

On Friday, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was convicted of espionage by a Russian court. He was sentenced immediately. The penalty was 16 years in a maximum-security prison.

The sentencing has given rise to speculation about negotiation for Gershkovich’s release. Russia likes to trade prisoners only after they have been convicted or pleaded and been sentenced. What could that mean for others?

On the same day Gershkovich was sentenced in Yekaterinburg, Russian American editor Alsu Kurmasheva was convicted and sentenced to 6½ years in prison for spreading false information.

Almar Latour is the CEO of Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal and a graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He and his editor-in-chief Emma Tucker released a statement Friday after Gershkovich’s sentencing, calling the proceedings a “disgraceful, sham conviction.”

“This must end now,” they said.

Kurmasheva’s husband, Pavel Butorin, gave a statement to the Associated Press after the secret trial and sentence were confirmed Monday, saying she had done nothing wrong.

“The only just outcome is for Alsu to be immediately released from prison by her Russian captors,” Kurmasheva’s boss, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty President Stephen Capus, told the AP.

Gershkovich has been in prison 479 days. Kurmasheva was arrested in October, 276 days ago.

For Oakmont teacher and Latour’s fellow IUP alum Marc Fogel, 62, it has been 1,070 days since his August 2021 arrest for possession of medical marijuana legally prescribed in Pennsylvania for documented, debilitating back, hip and knee pain.

Gershkovich has been a regular subject of speculation about prisoner swaps or other deals. He is designated wrongfully detained. Fogel and Kurmasheva are not.

Fogel is seldom mentioned at all by U.S. officials and rarely in connection with negotiations for release. The State Department has appealed for his release on humanitarian grounds.

Does Gershkovich’s conviction change that? It’s hard to say.

Fogel was, notably, brought up in discussions by multiple news agencies Friday. He was not mentioned by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. However, his language as he was grilled about former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, also convicted and sentenced to 16 years for espionage, was different than it has been.

Would Whelan be included in negotiations, Blinken was asked. Those efforts would continue, he insisted “until we bring Evan home, until we bring Paul home, for that matter until we bring every arbitrarily detained American anywhere around the world home.”

Fogel’s sentence is closer to that of the accused spies than it is to the nine years given to WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was also arrested for possession of medically prescribed cannabis. That is arbitrary.

Gershkovich should come home, along with Kurmasheva, Whelan and any others held less for crimes than for leverage.

That includes Fogel.