All news
Frenchman Vinatier sentenced to three years in prison for foreign agent status
Laurent Vinatier, a French citizen recognized in Russia as a foreign agent, has been sentenced to three years in a general regime penal colony, the prosecutor's office reported.
Vinatier was detained in Moscow on June 6. It turned out that at that time he was an employee of the Swiss Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, which plays an important role in resolving conflicts around the world, including in Africa, the Middle East, Eurasia and Asia.
Vinatier was accused of knowingly and illegally collecting information "in the sphere of military and military-technical activities of Russia." In addition, he failed to fulfill the obligation to provide documents for registration as a foreign agent. The Ministry of Justice registered the French citizen in the register of foreign agents in June 2024. President Putin spoke about Durov's detention in France. And I remember meeting this man...
Vinatier's case was investigated in a special way. This way of examining the case was requested by the defendant's lawyers and Vinatier himself. This allowed the court not to check the evidence collected. The special procedure also limits the sentence to two-thirds of the maximum penalty.
French Vinatier is a PhD in political science and is known as an expert on Russia and Central Asia. The Chechen conflict has also been of particular interest to him.
Let us recall that earlier in France on August 24, Telegram founder and Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov was detained at a Paris airport on charges of complicity in crimes committed using Telegram. On August 28, a Paris court ordered the entrepreneur to be placed under judicial supervision and set bail at 5 million euros. Durov is prohibited from leaving France. In addition, they must appear at the police station twice a week until the supervision is lifted.
In late September, he announced that the Telegram Messenger team had updated the site's privacy policy and terms of service. Now, upon official request, the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate the site's rules will be handed over to the authorities.