DPR authorities said the three – British nationals Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner and Moroccan national Brahim Saadoune – were foreign militants who were captured by Russian forces in April in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. RIA Novosti said the three would be shot.
Russia is the only country that the DPR considers independent. The international community does not recognize the region and its institutions and considers the territory part of Ukraine. Independent monitoring groups have long accused the separatists of a dismal human rights record and abuse of prisoners.
Ukraine’s government said in a statement on Wednesday that it considers all foreign volunteers to be members of its armed forces and lawful combatants entitled to treatment as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.
RIA Novosti quoted the “head of the judiciary body” in Donetsk as saying the convicted “can appeal the decision within a month”.
Pavel Kosovan, one of the defendants’ lawyers, said his clients would appeal the verdict, Russian state media TASS reported after the death penalty was imposed.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the verdict had “absolutely no legitimacy”.
“I strongly condemn the sentencing of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, who are being held by Russian proxies in eastern Ukraine. They are prisoners of war. This is a bogus judgment without any legitimacy. My thoughts are with the families. We continue to do everything we can to support them,” she said in a statement released on Twitter.
Pinner was previously a member of the British Armed Forces, according to a statement released by Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in April.
Several friends of Saadoune told CNN that he originally came to Ukraine to study at a university and joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2021.
Aslin’s family said on Wednesday, after the DPR released a propaganda video of him and the other two men appearing in court, that they were working with the British Foreign Office and the Ukrainian government to bring him home.
In the statement, released to CNN via the UK Foreign Office on Wednesday, the family said Aslin was “a very loved man and greatly missed”.
CNN has also reached out to British and Moroccan authorities for comment.