Lavrov considers the death sentences of the British Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner and the Moroccan Brahim Saadoun to be in line with the law of the pro-Russian republic. They have one month to appeal the ruling.
Russian Foreign Minister Seguéi Lavrov responded Friday to the wave of international outcry over the death sentence imposed by an alleged court of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) against three foreign brigade members, Britain’s Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, and the Moroccan Brahim Saadoun. Lavrov has called for “no interference” in the decision of a judicial body that considers Kiev completely subordinate to the separatist leadership of Donetsk, a territorial entity that has virtually no one in the rest of the world except Russia.
The Russian foreign minister told the press that “At the moment, all the trials are based on the DNR law, as the crimes in question were committed in that area. Everything else is a matter of speculation.” The three brigade members were charged with committing “crimes” against the civilian population of Donetsk and were sentenced to death on Thursday, from which they can appeal within a term of up to a month.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman María Zajárova, for her part, assured by a statement that “contrary to the statements of British officials, the above-mentioned citizens are not prisoners of war, but mercenaries. The mercenaries sent by the West to aid the nationalist regime in Kiev are not fighters under international humanitarian law and are not entitled to prisoner of war status.”
In his words, the detainees were “accused of participating in hostilities on the part of Ukraine as mercenaries and sentenced to death for a combination of crimes.” Zakharova also noted that “for our part, we have repeatedly informed the British embassy in Moscow that all questions about the imprisoned British should be directed to the authorities” in Donetsk and Lugansk. “To our knowledge, London has not taken any initiative to do so, not even despite requests from the mercenaries’ relatives to British authorities,” the Russian diplomatic spokeswoman added.
Pinner, Aslin and Saadoun surrendered separately to the rebels in Donetsk in Mariupol in mid-April and were sentenced to death on Thursday. That same day, the British authorities rejected the court decision. “Of course we are very concerned about this. We constantly say that prisoners of war should not be used for political purposes,” said the official representative of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “According to the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war have the right to immunity, they should not be tried for taking part in combat actions,” the statement said. declaration.
Johnson himself said Friday that he was “dismayed” according to Downing Street. “It is clear that they have served in the Ukrainian armed forces and are prisoners of war,” the spokesman reiterated. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss described the day before’s verdict as a “mock trial without legitimacy”. On Friday, he called his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmitro Kuleba, to study the steps to be taken from now on.
The UN has also responded to the death sentences of the brigades. The spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, based in Geneva, stated that “since 2015 we have found that the so-called judicial system of these self-proclaimed republics (Donetsk and Luhansk) does not meet the essential guarantees for a fair According to him, “these prisoner of war trials are yet another war crime.” It is true that the three brigade members on death row reported to the Ukrainian army before the start of the Russian invasion.
The same fate could befall the members of the Azov battalion, which after three months surrendered the defense of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. On Wednesday, the Russian agency TASS assured that “more than 1,000 people from the Azovstal steel plant have been transferred to Russia. The security forces are working to clarify the facts.”
The same source claimed that “more than a hundred Ukrainian fighters, including foreign mercenaries who surrendered in Mariupol, could be found in Moscow.” But Donetsk separatist leaders have already warned that some of the Azovstal prisoners will undoubtedly be sentenced to death. However, the evacuation of the steel mill was agreed with UN and Red Cross mediation and it was clear that all of them would be exchanged for captured Russian soldiers or separatist rebels, never tried, much less executed.
Source: La Verdad
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