24 August 2024
The mysteries and precedential value of the “Vinatier case”—the first foreigner arrested for failing to report himself as a foreign agent
by Leonid Nikitinsky
Source: Novaya gazeta
In Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky district court, a case began that charged Laurent Claude Jean-Louis Vinatier — a Frenchman working for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), a Swiss NGO — under Art. 330.1, Part 3, of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
Vinatier, who, simultaneously with his detention on 6 June was added by the Justice Ministry to the register of “persons under foreign influence,” is accused of not registering as a “foreign agent” on his own initiative, even though he was allegedly engaged in (further is a citation from the text of Art. 330.1 CC RF) “the intentional collection of information in the area of the military and military-technical activities of the Russian Federation, which, upon its receipt by foreign sources, could be used against the security of the Russian Federation.”
As the possessor of the most genuine foreign passport, which gives him some hope of avoiding retribution in Russia, Vinatier has been held in custody all this time, and the judge taking up this case is hardly likely to change the pre-trial conditions.
The case will be heard behind closed doors, of course, and we will have little chance of finding out whose evidence is used to prove the unlucky Frenchman’s “espionage” activity.
Laurent Vinatier has been working in and with Russia for at least a quarter-century, he has a Russian wife in France, he speaks Russian well, and he is fairly well known to the Russian expert community — both its liberal and its “Eurasian”-oriented parts. Vinatier, who has a doctorate, has published several works in French devoted to Islam in the North Caucasus and on other topics connected to Russia.
The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), headquartered in Geneva and financed by intergovernmental grants, positions itself as an organization specializing in settling interethnic conflicts by means of informal contacts and private diplomacy. Operating since 1999, and having branches in many problem regions of the world, the Centre organizes international conferences in Europe and beyond its borders that are usually devoted to general issues of ecology, culture, or digital globalization. This is the public side, though. Out of the public eye, conversations may be held on all kinds of topics — for instance, on exchanging the bodies of people killed. The useful informal contacts, which make it possible to prepare positions for official negotiations with the conflicting sides, never stop and are maintained by no means only along the line of military headquarters and the special services.
Similar non-public and also not secret intermediary projects of the HD Centre are ongoing in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Eurasia, and Asia. After the events of 2014 in Crimea and the Donbas, Vinatier, who is responsible for the “Eurasian” area of the HD Centre, carried out initiatives, in particular in Turkey, Greece, and on Cyprus, where representatives were invited both from Ukraine and — with the consent of the Russian Foreign Ministory, the rector of MGIMO, and the presidential administration — from Russia, primarily from academia and NGOs (we could name the participants, but bearing in mind the law on “foreign influence,” we will refrain).
After the SVO [special military operation] began, Ukrainian experts began to avoid initiatives with Russian colleagues, and Vinatier put the emphasis on more pragmatic businessmen from both sides. The Russian Union of Industrialists and Businessmen (RSPP) supported this idea, seeing no harm in it for Russia, but it never did go anywhere, evidently. Possibly it was in this complicated business sphere that Vinatier rashly got in someone’s way, and that may have been the reason for his “espionage failure.”
Vinatier, evidently, is one of the first “pure” foreigners, that is, someone who never had Russian citizenship, on the Justice Ministry’s notorious list.
The Federal Law No. 255, dated 14 July 2022, “On monitoring the activities of persons under foreign influence” (which codified and synthesized the legislation on foreign agents starting in 2012), does not rule out this possibility, but this entire cunning construction was created to fight “domestic enemies,” and up until now NGOs of “foreign origin” did occasionally fall among the “foreign agents” but not physical persons.
The Vinatier case is evidently going to be the very first precedent for the application of Art. 330.1, Part 3, CC RF. Statistics of the Judicial Department for 2023 indicate 418 verdicts under Parts 1 and 2 (refusal to register as a “foreign agent” and violation of the rules of conduct for a “foreign agent,” given an administrative sanction imposed for the same thing), but there isn’t a single verdict under Part 3.
And based strictly on the disposition of this regulation, which was added to the Criminal Code on 29 December 2022, it is impossible even to imagine one.
The regulation of Art. 330.1, Part 3, criminalizes a combination of two so-called “acts”: action + inaction. Logically, the first is “the collection of information in the area of the military and military-technical activities of the Russian Federation which upon receipt by foreign sources could be used against the security of the Russian Federation.” However, the law makes a special qualification that this element as significantly less serious can be charged only “in the absence of signs of the crimes” provided for by Art. 275 CC RF (state treason) and Art. 276 CC RF (espionage).
Objectively, the crime of which Vinatier is accused in this case wholly coincides with the element of espionage. What this means is that the legislature decided to treat the subjective aspect – that is the intention and motives of “the collector of information” – separately. Vinatier collected it “intentionally” (this is a mandatory feature) not to transmit to any NATO intelligence centres but as if himself not knowing for what. Actually, that is what the disposition says: “information that could be used upon receipt.” But how can an expert or journalist grasp this in advance as the intention?
And how could Vinatier have guessed that it was time for him, who was so close to being a spy, to run to the Justice Ministry and register as a “foreign agent”? Meanwhile, it was exactly this inaction of his that constitutes the second essential part of the “criminal act.”
The “legislature” is presented as a body smart by definition, but this makes no sense. Right now it is hard to imagine how the Zamoskvoretsky court — trailblazer on the path of Art. 330.1, Part 3 — is going to extricate itself from this. But if Vinatier, since the information has already been gathered, is now going to be viewed as an “asset” in the next exchange of real Russian spies, he’s going to have to do more time.
After Vinatier’s arrest, the French authorities rushed to state that he “was not working for France,” which accords with the facts. The French press is commenting on this Russian case with great caution. The Russian Investigative Committee has stated that Vinatier “confessed his guilt,” but as we surmise, only for not registering as a “foreign agent,” since that obligation had been unknown to him. But (see above for more detail) he knew nothing of the fact that it turns out he was engaged in the “intentional collection of information” that represented a potential threat for the Russian Federation.
With this publication of ours, we are not going to be making things worse for the not-quite spy, and drawing attention to his case would not be superfluous. Especially since the first blow is half the battle, and who knows who else, rashly visiting their “beloved Russia,” might find himself under lock and key under the unimaginable Art. 330.1, Part 3, CC RF.
Translated by Marian Schwartz
