Death Penalty News

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, on Friday condemned the death sentence handed down to three foreign fighters in Ukraine by a court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. “Such trials against prisoners of war amount to a war crime,” said OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani. The three men - Britons Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, and Moroccan Saaudun Brahim – were captured while fighting for Ukraine , reportedly defending the southern port city of Mariupol. Bitter fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces since the Russian invasion on 24 February flattened the city, where UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet has previously condemned attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, that have likely caused thousands of deaths. “OHCHR is concerned about the so-called Supreme Court of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic sentencing three servicemen to death,” said Ms. Shamdasani. “According to the chief command of Ukraine, all the men were part of the Ukrainian a...

“What did you come to us for? You came to protect us? From whom? You ‘protected’ me from my husband, whom you killed.” A 21-year-old Russian soldier was found guilty Monday of killing an unarmed civilian in Ukraine’s first war crimes trial since Russia’s invasion. He was sentenced to life in prison. A court in Kyiv handed down the verdict after Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin pleaded guilty last week to killing a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the northeastern Sumy province but said he was following orders. Shishimarin pleaded guilty to killing 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov, who was pushing his bicycle near the village of Chupakhivka, near the Russian border, during the early days of the invasion in late February. Shelipov “died on the spot just a few meters from his home,” according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova. Shishimarin’s charge, “violation of the rules and customs of war," is punishable by 10 years to life imprisonment. Shelipov’s widow last week said she would ...