Two British Pows face death penalty over mercenary charges

TWO British men captured by Russian forces in Ukraine went on trial yesterday in separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine on charges carrying the death penalty.

Aiden Aslin, 28, and Sean Pinner, 48, were seen in the dock yesterday in their first public appearance in almost two months, after they were captured by the Russian army serving alongside Ukrainian marines in Mariupol.

The men are now accused of fighting as mercenaries – despite the fact that both live in Ukraine and have officially served in the country’s armed forces for several years.

Separatist authorities in Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine under Russian control, said that the two Britons – along with a student from Morocco – could face the death penalty if convicted.

Mr Aslin, from Newark, Notts, was last seen on Russian state TV during an interrogation where he looked dishevelled and appeared to slur his words.

Footage released yesterday by the separatists’ “Supreme Court” showed the three men in a metal cage in court. Mr Aslin, who appeared to have lost a lot of weight, replied in Russian “Yes, I do” when a judge asked him if he understood the indictment against him.

Mr Pinner also looked haggard and thin and replied “yes” to the same question. The two Britons are standing trial with Ibrahim Sadun, a Moroccan student from the same Ukrainian unit in Mariupol that surrendered after fighting the Russian army for 48 days as the city was pummelled by air strikes.

Russian state media has accused the West of sending mercenaries to fight in Ukraine, so a high-profile trial of foreign fighters may prove to be a valuable propaganda tool.