Five Europeans captured in eastern Ukraine have been tried in a court run by Kremlin-backed separatists in the city of Donetsk, Russian media reported.
The five – Sweden’s Mathias Gustafsson, Croatia’s Vjekoslav Prebeg and Britain’s John Harding, Andrew Hill and Dylan Healy – pleaded not guilty to charges of being mercenaries and “training to seize power by force”, according to Russian media reports.
They could face the death penalty under the laws of the self-proclaimed and unrecognized Donetsk People’s Republic.
The next court hearing on his case is scheduled for October, Russian media reported.
Harding, Prebeg and Gustafsson were captured in the Ukrainian port of Mariupol and face possible execution for attempting to “seize power by force” and “participating in armed conflict as mercenaries,” the agency reported of news RIA Novosti.
Hill faces mercenary charges, while Healy is on trial for involvement in recruiting mercenaries for Ukraine, the news agency said.
On June 9, the self-proclaimed republic’s supreme court sentenced two Britons and a Moroccan, all captured by pro-Russian forces in Ukraine’s industrial east, to death for being mercenaries. All three have appealed against their sentences.
There has been a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia since 1997, but it does not apply to the two separatist regions of Ukraine.
Ukrainian social media has been abuzz with speculation that the Kremlin might try to use the foreign fighters to extract concessions from Ukraine or exchange them for Russian prisoners.