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Ukraine: five foreign fighters judged as "mercenaries" by the separatists

2022-08-15T20:40:22.016Z


Three of them, prosecuted for attempted "seizure of power by force" and for "participation in an armed conflict as merc


A trial that looks like a warning to the West.

Separatists in eastern Ukraine, backed by Moscow, began trying Monday three Britons, a Croat and a Swede accused of having fought with the Ukrainian army.

The "Supreme Court" of the separatist region of Donetsk has opened the trial of John Harding, Andrew Hill, Dylan Healy, originally from the United Kingdom, as well as Croatian Vjekoslav Prebeg and Swede Mathias Gustafsson, Russian media reported.

Harding, Prebeg and Gustafsson, taken prisoner in the area of ​​​​the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, besieged and bombarded for weeks by the Russian army, incur the death penalty, according to a judge quoted by the news agency TASS.

According to the Ria-Novosti agency, these three men are being prosecuted for attempting to “take power by force” and for “participating in an armed conflict as a mercenary”.

A moratorium on the death penalty has been in force in Russia since 1997, but this is not the case in the two separatist territories in eastern Ukraine.

Read alsoWar in Ukraine: the father of the Moroccan sentenced to death urges Putin to intervene

The Briton Andrew Hill is only accused of mercenary, while Dylan Healy is prosecuted for "having participated in the recruitment of mercenaries" in favor of Ukraine, according to the Ria-Novosti agency.

A British non-profit organization announced on April 29 that two aid workers, including Dylan Healy, had been captured by the Russian army in southern Ukraine.

The court indicated that the trial of the five accused will not resume until early October, without giving any explanation on the reasons for this delay.

They have all pleaded not guilty, according to Russian media.

In early June, two British fighters and a Moroccan had already been sentenced to death by Donetsk separatists.

They appealed this decision.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, thousands of foreign fighters have swelled the Ukrainian ranks.

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2022-08-15

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