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Rabat – Russia’s State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin has said that Moroccan Brahim Saadoun and the two Britons who fought with Ukraine deserve the death penalty.
“Everyday we see crimes against humanity committed by the Kyiv neo-Nazi regime, shelling residential areas, hospitals, maternity hospitals, kindergartens, schools. Old people, women, children are dying,” the Russian politician said.
Referring to the much-criticized sentences a Russian proxy court handed out recently against three foreign fighters, the Russian politician said: “The death penalty is the punishment these fascists deserve.”
The death sentence verdict sparked outrage among rights groups, as well as the UN, and the UK.
The UK’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called the Russian-backed Donetsk court’s ruling a “sham trial without legitimacy.”
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) also condemned the death sentence, calling the trials a war crime.
Saddoun’s friends and father have also expressed grave concerns about the verdict.
Some of Saadoun’s Ukrainian friends have called on the UK to intervene and help him.
UK broadcaster SkyNews quoted Saadoun’s Ukrainian friend Zina Kotenko who described him as “kind, open-minded, and cheerful.”
Known as Brian in Ukraine, Brahim Saadoun joined the Ukrainian army last summer, according to his friends.
Read also: Brahim Saadoun Sentence: CMDH Calls on Morocco to Intervene
Sources from the Moroccan embassy in Ukraine said Saadoun was arrested wearing the uniform of the Ukrainian army. As a member of the Ukrainian army, he would be entitled to status as a prisoner of war, under the protection of the Geneva convention.
According to reports, the Russian military arrested the Moroccan man in April.
“In his statements, the person concerned confirmed that he had joined the Ukrainian army by his choice. He even pointed out that he has Ukrainian nationality, an information, which was, moreover, confirmed by his father,” the sources said.
The sources from the embassy highlighted that the court that handed down the sentence is not recognized by Morocco or the UN.
