THE QUESTION
.
Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Brahim Saadoun face execution.
Captured in Ukraine while fighting for Kiev, the two Britons and the Moroccan were sentenced to death for "mercenarism" by the "supreme court" of the Donetsk People's Republic, an entity created in 2014 by pro-Russian separatists in the Ukrainian oblast of the same name,
de facto
controlled by Moscow, but not recognized by the international community.
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Read alsoWar in Ukraine and Battle of Donbass: the four maps to follow the military situation live
“
Clearly, they served in the Ukrainian armed forces and are prisoners of war
”, explained this Friday the spokesperson for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, taking up the argument put forward on Thursday by the Foreign Office.
“
The judgment against them is a flagrant breach of the Geneva Convention
”, reacted on Twitter the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Liz Truss, who spoke this Friday with her Ukrainian counterpart.
Arguments across the Channel diverge sharply from the discourse held in Moscow.
“
Mercenaries sent by the West to aid the nationalist regime in Kiev are not combatants under international humanitarian law and are not entitled to prisoner of war status
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
Legally, what about?
What does international humanitarian law, also called the law of armed conflict, say?
Can a combatant, especially a foreigner, be sentenced to death?
CHECK
.
And let's detail what...
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