01/08/26 08:54:00
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01/08 08:53 CST Russia frees French political scholar in a prisoner swap for a
basketball player
Russia frees French political scholar in a prisoner swap for a basketball player
By The Associated Press
Laurent Vinatier, a French political scholar serving a three-year sentence in
Russia and facing new charges of espionage, has been freed in a prisoner swap
with France, a Russian security agency said Thursday.
In exchange, Russian basketball player Daniil Kasatkin, jailed in France and
whose extradition was demanded by the United States, was released and returned
to Russia on Thursday, Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, said in a
statement.
Russian state news agency Tass released what it said was FSB footage showing
Vinatier in a black track suit and winter jacket being informed about his
release, to which he said "Thank you" in Russian, being driven in a car and
boarding a plane after Kasatkin descended from it. It wasn't immediately clear
when the video was filmed.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday afternoon that "our fellow
citizen Laurent Vinatier is free and back in France" in a post on X, expressing
"relief" and "gratitude" towards diplomatic staff for their efforts.
Vinatier was arrested in Moscow in June 2024. Russian authorities accused him
of failing to register as a "foreign agent" while collecting information about
Russia's "military and military-technical activities" that could be used to the
detriment of national security. A court convicted him and sentenced him to a
three-year prison term.
Last year, Vinatier was also charged with espionage, according to the FSB --- a
criminal offense punishable by between 10 and 20 years in prison in Russia.
The scholar has been pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the security
agency said.
Putin has promised to look into Vinatier's case after a French journalist asked
him during his annual news conference on Dec. 19 whether Vinatier's family
could hope for a presidential pardon or his release in a prisoner exchange. The
Russian president said at the time that he knew "nothing" about it.
Several days later, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia
had made "an offer to the French" about Vinatier.
Vinatier is an adviser for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a
Switzerland-based nongovernmental organization, which said in June 2024 that it
was doing "everything possible to assist" him.
The charges that he was convicted on relate to a law that requires anyone
collecting information on military issues to register with authorities as a
foreign agent.
Human rights activists have criticized the law and other recent legislation as
part of a Kremlin crackdown on independent media and political activists
intended to stifle criticism of the war in Ukraine.
In recent years, Russia has arrested a number of foreigners --- mainly
Americans --- on various criminal charges and then released them in prisoner
swaps with the United States and other Western nations.
The largest exchange since the Cold War took place in August 2024, when Moscow
freed journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, fellow American Paul
Whelan, and Russian dissidents in a multinational deal that set two dozen
people free.
Russian media reported Kasatkin's arrest last summer. The Interfax news agency
reported that he was detained in a Paris airport upon a request from the U.S.,
where authorities suspected Kasatkin of involvement with a ransomware group.
___
Sylvie Corbet contributed to this report from Paris.
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