Two British citizens and one Morocco citizen have been sentenced to death by Pro-Moscow rebels on Thursday because they had fought on the side of Ukraine.
The British and Morocco citizens were charged and also found guilty by a court in Donetsk People’s Republic which is an unrecognized eastern republic in Ukraine. They were charged with trying to violently overthrow power and the punishment for this offense was said to be a death sentence. Apart from this, these men were also found culpable of being mercenaries and terrorists.
Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner, and Brahim Saadoun who have been identified as the three foreigners charged with these crimes are expected to face a firing squad and they only have just a month to appeal for this sentence.
The families of the defendants have however claimed that they had held the position of officers of the Ukrainian military for a very long time. The Moroccan father had said that his son who is twenty-one years old, was a Ukrainian citizen and the British boy’s parents have said that their sons have been in the Ukrainian military since 2018.
The group has said that as “mercenaries” they were not prisoners of war hence they were not deserving of any immunity. The Russian military had also said that foreign mercenaries fighting on Ukraine’s side are not combatants and could be sent to prison for a long term if they were captured.
This sentence has been condemned by the foreign minister of Ukraine who had said that foreign citizens fighting for Ukraine were not mercenaries and they should be seen as Ukrainian military personnel and thus would be defended as one.
Luz Truss, who is the British Foreign Secretary has described the sentencing as a “sham judgment with absolutely no legitimacy.”
Andrew Hill is another British citizen waiting for his trial by the pro-Moscow forces.
