Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine on Monday began trying three Britons, a Croat and a Swede accused of fighting with the Ukrainian army, which could earn them the death penalty.
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.
The planned death penalty
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 who risk execution are being prosecuted for attempting to “seize power by force” and for “participating in an armed conflict as a mercenary”.
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.
Resumption of the trial in October
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.
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.
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War in Ukraine
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Death sentence