He is a staffer with a Swiss group that mediates conflicts. He was arrested as France—Russia relations continued to deteriorate.
A Russian court found French researcher Laurent Vinatier guilty of violating the country’s “foreign agent” law and handed him a three-year prison sentence.
The 48-year-old worked for the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, HD. He was arrested in June amid rising tensions between Moscow and Kyiv’s Western allies over Russia’s war in Ukraine.
He was charged with gathering information on Russia’s military without being registered as a “foreign agent.”
Judge Natalya Cheprasova threw out the defense pleas for a fine and sentenced Vinatier to three years in a penal colony, two years less than the maximum possible sentence.
While he awaits his fate, Vinatieri delivers an impassioned speech to the court. “I love Russia, I love its free city,” he said when he apologized for breaking the law, even reciting a verse by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.
Wearing a blue open-necked shirt and jeans, he stood behind metal bars and listened intently as the judge gave her verdict. He was blinking rapidly but did not show any visible emotion.
Vinatieri was not allowed to speak to the media, but his lawyer Pavel Mamonov told journalists: “We consider the sentence harsh and will appeal.”
The French declared Vinatier held in arbitrary detention and requested that he be released. President Emmanuel Macron claimed that his countryman was not in service to the state and described the detention as a component of Moscow’s disinformation campaign.
The government condemned the “extreme severity” of the sentence handed down Monday by the court after renewing its call for his release.
“The ‘foreign agent’ legislation is a symptom and a factor of an overall legally established violation of basic rights and freedoms in Russia,” stressed France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs spokesman Christophe Lemoine.
