These are the first convictions of foreign fighters in Ukraine, described as mercenaries by Russia. The Supreme Court of the self-proclaimed people’s republic of Donetsk on Thursday (June 9th) sentenced two Britons and a Moroccan to death. They had pleaded guilty, Russian agencies say, during their three-day trial. They now have four weeks before perhaps pleading their case again.
With our correspondent in Moscow, Anissa El Jabri
The future of the two Britons is considered by observers to be much darker. They were fighting in the symbol factory of Azovstal, in Mariupol, while the Moroccan citizen was taken prisoner in one of the first towns taken by Russia, in the Volnovakha region.
Above all, it is with London that Moscow’s relations have been degraded for a very long time. A sign of what is at stake, these two Britons – and they alone – appeared on Russian television last April, asking Boris Johnson to negotiate their release. London did not offer to exchange them, information from the Kremlin spokesperson, in response to a question during his daily update, the day before the judgment.
These cases could well multiply. The leader of the pro-Russian separatist republic of Donetsk last month announced plans to hold courts for prisoners. Modeled, he said, on those at Nuremberg.
A reference to the trials organized after the Second World War, in Germany, in line with the Kremlin’s rhetoric and its stated objective, ” denazify » Ukraine.
The Britain said ” deeply concerned » by these convictions. ” Under the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war are entitled to fighter immunity said a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson.