The court found the three men – Britain’s Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner and Moroccan Brahim Saadoun – guilty of “hiring and committing acts aimed at seizing power and overthrowing the constitutional order of the DPR”, the Interfax news agency quoted a judge as saying. official. . The three men were arrested while fighting for Ukraine against Russia and Russian-backed forces following the February 24 invasion of Russia. Their lawyer told them they would appeal the decision. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Britain has criticized the court ruling as a “false decision”. “I strongly condemn the sentencing of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, held by Russian plenipotentiaries in eastern Ukraine,” Foreign Minister Liz Truss said on Twitter. “They are prisoners of war. This is a sham crisis without any legitimacy at all.”
‘TEST APPEARANCE’
A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war were entitled to combat immunity and should not be prosecuted for engaging in hostilities. Robert Jenrik, a member of parliament for the district where Aslin’s family lives, said the proceedings were like a “Soviet-era trial”. During the process, the three men were held in a cage with black bars, guarded by soldiers with their faces covered and wearing armbands with the pro-Russian symbol “Z”, before being asked to stand while the verdict was read to them. , showed a video from the courtroom published by the RIA Novosti news agency. The hasty trial was held largely behind closed doors. Less than 24 hours before the verdict was handed down, Pinner and Saadoun had pleaded guilty to acts aimed at violently seizing power, according to a video released by the court to the RIA Novosti news agency. Aslin appeared to have pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of weapons and explosives. “The evidence presented by the prosecution in this case allowed the court to issue a guilty verdict, not to mention the fact that all the accused, without exception, pleaded guilty to all charges,” Judge Alexander Nikulin told reporters at court after extradition. The verdict. “In passing the verdict, the court was guided not only by the rules and regulations provided, but also by the most important, unshakable principle of justice. It was the one that made it possible to make this complex and difficult decision to apply an emergency measure “punishment in the form of the death penalty”, he added.
UNRECOGNIZED STATE
The DPR is one of two Russian-backed separatist entities in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine that Russia says it is fighting to liberate from Ukrainian forces. Three days before launching its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Russia recognized them as independent states in a move condemned by Ukraine and the West as illegal. Britain does not recognize the DPR and Britain has not publicly engaged with local officials in the case. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peshkov said earlier this week that if London raises the issue directly with the DRC, it could amount to de facto recognition of the region’s independence. British citizens Aslin, 28, and Pinner, 48, were arrested by Russian-backed forces in Mariupol in April during a fierce battle for control of the city. Their families say they have both been living in Ukraine since 2018. Read more The Moroccan Saadoun surrendered in March while fighting in a small town between Mariupol and the regional capital of Donetsk. Moroccan authorities have not commented on the case since his arrest. Kyiv also condemned the court ruling as unauthorized, saying the fighters were members of the Ukrainian armed forces and therefore subject to the protections of the Geneva Convention. “This so-called ‘trial’ of members of the Ukrainian armed forces in the occupied Ukrainian territories is invalid,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko. “Such public trials put the interests of propaganda above law and morality and undermine the mechanisms for the return of prisoners of war.” Both Ukrainian and Russian forces have captured hundreds of enemy fighters since the beginning of the conflict, with a handful of prisoner exchanges. After stumbling on their initial advance in the capital, Kyiv, Russian forces and their proxies have re-concentrated in the southeastern Donbass region, creating a so-called “land corridor” in recent weeks between Russia and the Crimean peninsula over in 2014. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report from Reuters’s offices. Edited by Alex Richardson Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
