The Supreme Court of the Donetsk People’s Republic sentenced two Britons Aiden Aslin and Sean Pinner, as well as a Moroccan Brahim Saadoun, who surrendered in Donbass, to death for mercenarism.
“The board of the Appellate Chamber of the Supreme Court of the DPR considered a criminal case against British citizens Sean Pinner, Aiden Aslin and a citizen of the Kingdom of Morocco Brahim Saadoun, accused of mercenarism and committing actions aimed at seizing power and overthrowing the constitutional order of the DPR,” he told reporters following the results. meeting on Thursday, the presiding collegium in the case Alexander Nikulin.
“When passing the verdict, the court was guided not only by the prescribed norms and rules, but also by the main, unshakable principle of justice. It was he who made it possible to make this difficult and difficult decision to apply the death penalty to the convicts,” he said.
As Nikulin explained, “the evidence presented by the prosecution allowed the court to pass a guilty verdict.” “Except for the fact that all the defendants pleaded guilty on all counts, (…) it is built not only on their admission of guilt,” he said. Convicted foreigners will have a month to appeal. Previously in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation declaredthat “the mercenaries who arrived in Ukraine are not combatants, the best thing that awaits them is a long term in prison.”
This news caused concern around the world, since such a decision was made in relation to mercenaries fighting on the side of the Ukrainian army. Both Britons serve in the Ukrainian armed forces, the United Kingdom said and made it clear that they are prisoners of war who are entitled to immunity and should not be prosecuted for their participation in hostilities, the BBC reported. According to CNN, the three men were captured in mid-April in Mariupol.
On June 8, the press service of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported: “All foreign citizens and stateless persons taking part in hostilities on the territory of Ukraine as part of the country’s armed forces have been voluntarily accepted into military service under a contract, in accordance with the law of Ukraine “On military duty and military service” of 1992. The persons concerned are members of the armed forces of Ukraine, who, according to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977, are subject to the legal status of combatants.”
Who are these three prisoners?
The Brits are reportedly named Aiden Aslin and Sean Piner, while the Moroccan is Brahim Saadoun. The BBC reports that Eslyn is 28 and hails from Nottinghamshire, while Piner is 48 and hails from Bedfordshire. The British Sean Pinner and Aiden Aslin surrendered at Mariupol in mid-April. Moroccan Brahim Saadoun surrendered on March 12 in Volnovakha.
Greek military edition defensenet.gr, citing his sources in the United States, writes that about 40% of all Ukrainian forces in the Donbas are foreign mercenaries. In total, their number in Ukraine is about 80,000 people.
According to the publication, the West sent thousands of mercenaries because the Ukrainian troops trained by them were not enough to seriously resist the Russians. After all, the best Ukrainian units were destroyed in the battle for Mariupol.
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