The United Nations has voiced “concern” after a court in the Russian -controlled Donetsk region of Ukraine condemned three foreign citizens serving in the Ukrainian armed forces to death.
On Thursday, June 9, a court in the pro-Russian, self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) sentenced a Moroccan citizen Brahim Saadoune and two British citizens Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner to death, accusing them of working for Ukraine as “mercenaries.”
The sentencing has sparked outrage in the West, prompting a response from the United Nations.
The UN says it is “concerned” about the three foreigners sentenced to death in Donetsk, adding that “according to the Chief Command of Ukraine, all men were part of Ukrainian armed forces and, if the case, should not be considered as mercenaries.”
UN Human Rights Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani, speaking to reporters at a press conference in Geneva on Friday, said: “The UN Human Rights Office is concerned that on 9 June, the so-called ‘supreme court’ of self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ sentenced to death three servicemen from Ukrainian armed forces, but citizens of foreign countries, captured in Mariupol, for being mercenaries and for the attempted seizure of power in the so-called ‘republic’.”
According to Shamdasani, since 2015, the UN has observed that “the so-called ‘judiciary’ in self-proclaimed ‘republics’ has not complied with essential fair trial guarantees, such as public hearing, independence and impartiality of the court and the right not to be compelled to testify.”
“Such trials against prisoners of war amount to a war crime. In the case of the use of the death penalty, fair trial guarantees are all the more important,” she said.