Keystone-SDA
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October 14, 2024 – 6:33 p.m.
(Keystone-ATS) Russian justice on Monday sentenced Frenchman Laurent Vinatier to three years in prison, detained since June and accused of not having registered as a “foreign agent”, his lawyers announcing their intention to appeal.
The court decided to “declare Mr. Vinatier guilty” and “sentence him to a prison sentence of three years,” declared judge Natalia Tcheprassova, according to an AFP journalist present in the room. audience.
This researcher specializing in the post-Soviet space was employed on Russian soil by the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Swiss NGO which mediates in conflicts outside official diplomatic circuits.
“My wife is Russian, my friends are Russian. I lived a Russian life,” he recalled to the judges on Monday, saying he fell in love with Russia 20 years ago, during a trip to Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
The Frenchman, dressed in a light blue shirt, appeared stoic as the verdict was announced. He was not allowed to speak after this sentence to the press present in court.
“Severe verdict”
Mr. Vinatier’s Russian lawyers, Oleg Bessonov and Alexeï Sinitsine, immediately deplored a “harsh verdict” to journalists. “We will, of course, appeal,” they announced.
The Russian authorities accused Mr. Vinatier of having failed to fulfill his obligation to register under the label of “foreign agent” even though he was collecting “information in the field of military activities” that could be “used against the security of Russia.
He risked up to five years in prison, but the prosecutor had earlier Monday requested a sentence of three years and three months in prison against the Frenchman.
Mr. Vinatier’s two lawyers had asked that their client, who had “fully admitted his guilt”, they recalled, be punished with a simple fine.
In the accused box, his face drawn, Laurent Vinatier had called for a “lenient and fair judgment”, believing that “imprisonment will affect the living conditions” of his family.
Laurent Vinatier, 48, admitted not having registered as a “foreign agent”, a label used in Russia against critical voices and which imposes heavy administrative obligations, under penalty of criminal sanctions.
He claimed to be unaware that this obligation had been introduced into the penal code.
The Russian security services (FSB) for their part affirmed at the beginning of July that the accused had “collected”, as part of his professional exchanges, “military and technical information which can be used by foreign intelligence services. “against the security of Russia”, declared the FSB at the time.
These accusations against him had for a certain period led to fears of a more serious indictment, for example for “espionage”, a crime punishable by 20 years of deprivation of liberty in Russia.
Strained relations with Paris
At the beginning of September, the Frenchman’s pre-trial detention was extended by six months on the first day of his trial, until February 21, 2025.
According to sources interviewed by AFP, the Frenchman had been working for years on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, even before the Russian offensive of February 2022, as part of discreet diplomatic efforts in parallel with those of the States. Until his arrest, he made trips to both countries.
This affair also comes at a time when relations between Moscow and Paris are very tense: Russia is accused of a series of acts of destabilization and disinformation on French territory, while France is criticized for its support for ‘Ukraine.
In recent years, several Westerners, particularly Americans, have been arrested in Russia and targeted with serious charges, with Washington denouncing hostage-taking to obtain the release of Russians detained abroad.
On August 1, the West and Russia carried out the largest exchange of prisoners since the end of the Cold War, including American journalist Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan, freed by Moscow.
