A friend of Moroccan Brahim Saadoun sentenced to death after being captured in Ukraine where he was fighting against Russian forces called on the British government on Sunday to "save" him.
Zina Kotenko, a Ukrainian refugee living in the UK described her friend Brahim Saadoun, 21, as "kind", "open-minded" and "cheerful".
Interviewed by the SkyNews television channel, she called on the British government to "take care of the people who take care of democracy".
“Please save him,” she said.
Zina Kotenko, a Ukrainian refugee living in the UK, talks to @SophyRidgeSky about her Moroccan friend Brahim Saadoun - who was sentenced to death alongside two British nationals after fighting in Ukraine.#Ridge https://t.co/GhEVgl1st3
📺 Sky 501 , Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/gNrt56FdFu
— Sophy Ridge on Sunday & The Take (@RidgeOnSunday) June 12, 2022
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Brahim Saadoun as well as the British Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, were taken prisoner in Ukraine where they were fighting for kyiv, and sentenced to death on Thursday for mercenary activities by the justice of the separatist authorities in Donetsk.
Another friend of the Moroccan soldier, Dmytro Khrabstov, 20, said Brahim, known to his friends in Ukraine as "Brian" joined the Ukrainian army last summer and told them he wanted " die a hero”.
"(Brahim Saadoun) is a brilliant and enthusiastic guy, dreaming about the technology of the future and how it could change things," Dmytro Khrabstov told the PA news agency.
He called his death sentence “inhuman”.
"Sham judgment without legitimacy"
The young Moroccan's father, Tader Saadoun, told the Moroccan news site Madar21 on Thursday that his son "is not a mercenary".
In April, he accused the Ukrainian authorities of “recruiting foreign students to exploit them in the war”.
British Foreign Minister Liz Truss - on Thursday called the verdict against the three men "a show of judgment without legitimacy".
Aiden Aslin's family explained at the end of April that he had moved to Ukraine in 2018, where he had met his partner and settled in Mykolaiv (south).
He had decided to join the Ukrainian Marines and served in that unit for almost four years.
Shaun Pinner's family had indicated that he was "neither a volunteer nor a mercenary, but officially serves in the Ukrainian army in accordance with Ukrainian legislation".
He also moved to Ukraine in 2018 and married a Ukrainian.
In a statement released Saturday by the British Foreign Office, Shaun Pinner's family said they were "devastated" by the court's decision, denouncing an "illegal show trial".
She asked that she be “granted all the rights of a prisoner of war in accordance with the Geneva Convention”.
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