DONETSK, June 1. /TASS/. The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) will not swap foreign mercenaries, who fought on the Kiev government’s side and are now facing a death penalty, including UK citizens Shaun Pinner and Andrew Hill, as well as Morocco citizen Saadun Brahim, a prominent DPR lawmaker, Yelena Shishkina, told TASS on Wednesday.
"They did not act here as servicemen who comply with international conventions. They acted as terrorists, as neo-Nazis, so any exchange is ruled out," Shishkina, who chairs the DPR parliament’s committee on criminal and administrative legislation, said when asked to comment on the possibility of swapping Pinner, Hill and Brahim.
The lawmaker added that swapping members of Ukraine’s Azov nationalist battalion was also ruled out completely.
According to Shishkina, mercenaries from many countries are currently engaged in hostilities in Ukraine, but primarily they come from Poland, Lithuania and France.
"Investigators are to look into whether it was their personal initiative to participate or they were sent here by special services or governments of their countries," the lawmaker said.
The head of the office for the investigation of crimes against peace and security at the investigative department of the DPR Prosecutor General's Office, Viktor Gavrilov, told reporters last Friday that the investigation of a criminal case of a group of foreign mercenaries from Britain and Morocco has been completed. "The files have been dispatched to one of the republican courts for consideration on the merits. In the context of wartime, the accused may face the capital punishment," he said.
Speaking on Russia’s Rossiya-1 television earlier, Pinner said a request has been made to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to swap him for Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk, accused of coal purchases from Donbass territories outside the Kiev government’s control.