The mother of the French researcher Laurent Vinatier, arrested for 10 months in Russia, requested this Sunday, April 13 at BFMTV on Sunday, April 13, an audience of the President of the Republic, while her son is sent to the penitential colony to comply with a three -year sentence in prison.
“This is a very important concern for us. Previously, I was in a provisional center in Moscow. We knew where he was. He received visits to the consul and his lawyer. Now, no one where he is. The prison colonies, in France, that does not exist,” he testified.
According to a message transmitted to the AFP on Thursday by his family, Laurent Vinatier’s lawyer informed them that the latter was transferred to Toula, about 200 kilometers south of Moscow, in a traffic prison colony to perform about forty and 15 days.
Stupor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
“We are constantly linked to the crisis cell of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They were completely surprised. We must surely take longer, but what worries us is that it was sentenced to the most severe sanction when it declared it guilty,” he adds.
After this period, it must be transferred to another establishment that is still unknown to comply with its sentence, according to him. Penitentiary transfers to Russia are procedures that often take several weeks, those close to convicted persons who can stay all this time without new.
Brigitte Vinatier informs having sent a letter to the President of the Republic two weeks ago. “We have recently made a request to have an audience, we would like to see it. We have not yet had an answer,” he told us.
A researcher at the service of an NGO by Paz
Rolled since June 2024, this researcher specialized in the postsoviet space was used in the Russian soil by the Humanitarian Dialogue Center, a Swiss NGO that makes mediation in conflicts outside the official diplomatic circuits, in particular with respect to Ukraine.
The Russian authorities accuse Laurent Vinatier, 48, of having failed in his obligation to register under the label of “agent from abroad” despite collecting “information in the field of military activities” that can be “used against the security” of Russia.
The Russian authorities have been using the state of “foreign agent” for years to suppress their detractors, but it is the first time that a foreign citizen has been imprisoned for this reason.
The interested party recognized the facts, but begged ignorance. He also apologized, waiting for the indulgence of justice. France denounces its conviction as “arbitrary” and asks for its “immediate liberation.”
Source: BFM TV
