The UN human rights office has expressed concern at the sentencing to death of a Moroccan man and two Britons by a Russian proxy court in eastern Ukraine, saying such trials against prisoners of war amounted to a war crime.

The UN says the three were part of Ukraine’s armed forces, and therefore could not be described as mercenaries.

Brahim Saadoun was a student in Ukraine when the war broke out, his father told Moroccan website Madar21, adding, “he is not a mercenary”.

AFP news agency also says the father accused the Ukrainian authorities of “recruiting foreign students and exploiting them in the war”. 

(BBC)