Three Britons are on trial for working as mercenaries in the courts of Russian-occupied Ukraine.
John Harding, Cambridgeshire aid worker Dylan Hill, 22, and military volunteer Andrew Hill are on trial at the Supreme Court of the Moscow-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
They are expected to be tried alongside Swedes and Croats as “foreigners accused of being mercenaries”, according to a court spokesman.
According to Tass, three Britons refused to cooperate with investigators.
Prosecutors say the five were members of the notorious Azov battalion and other military units captured in Mariupol.
Amnesty International and the UK Foreign Office strongly condemned the process.
This comes after a Donetsk court sentenced Britons Aiden Aslin and Sean Pinner to death last month, in what the Foreign Office described as a “false verdict”.
The European Court of Human Rights was forced to intervene, telling Moscow that Aslin, 28, from Newark, Nottinghamshire, and Mr Pinner, 48, from Bedfordshire, should not be executed.
In one of the latest British cases to be embroiled in a legal battle, Harding, 60, said he fought for Kurds on the Kurdish side of Syria but denied killing anyone.
According to the BBC, Harding, a retired military man from Sunderland, moved to Ukraine in 2018 and asked the British government for help in a video.
That was after a video broadcast on Russian television in April showed a man speaking with an English accent, believed to be Andrew Hill from Plymouth.
As is known, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is actively investigating and assisting the man’s family.
In some parts of England, July was officially the driest month since records began in 1836.
A spokesperson said:
“We are in constant communication with the Ukrainian government regarding their case and fully support Ukraine’s efforts to free them.
Amnesty International UK last month accused Moscow of the “exploitative” detention of a man.
Christian Benedict, crisis response manager for the charity, said: ‘
Get in touch with our news team by sending an email to Have a story? Alternatively, you can submit videos and photos here.
For more stories like this, check out our stories news page .
continue twitter Follow us on Facebook to get the latest news updates. You can also get items right on your device. Sign up for daily press alerts here.
Source: Metro
I have over 8 years of experience in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have also written for a few news agencies. I mostly cover healthcare news, but I am also interested in other topics such as politics, business, and entertainment. In my free time, I enjoy writing fiction and spending time with my family and friends.
