Court expected to issue verdict in espionage trial of The Wall Street Journal reporter on Friday.

A Russian prosecutor is seeking an 18-year sentence for American journalist Evan Gershkovich who has been charged with espionage.

The court said a verdict is expected to be issued on Friday at 12:00 GMT.

The 32-year-old correspondent for The Wall Street Journal newspaper is the first Western journalist in Russia to be arrested on espionage charges in post-Soviet Russia.

Gershkovich is accused by prosecutors of gathering secret information about Uralvagonzavod, a plant manufacturing tanks for Russia’s war in Ukraine, on the orders of the CIA.

The reporter, his employer and the United States government deny the allegations, saying he was just doing his job, with accreditation from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He was detained in March 2023 on a reporting trip to the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and then spent almost 16 months in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison.

The latest closed-door hearing started at about 10:45am (05:45 GMT) at Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg, with the prosecution and defence teams making their final arguments.

Closed-trials are standard in Russia for cases of treason or espionage involving classified material.