“The court hearing is scheduled for August 15, it will be held behind closed doors,” a representative of the DPR Supreme Court said in an interview with Interfax .
Among the defendants are three Britons: John Harding, Andrew Hill and Dylan Healy. Swede Matthias Gustavsson and Croat Vekoslav Prebeg also appeared in the dock.
The defendants are charged with participating in an armed conflict and hostilities as mercenaries, training to carry out terrorist activities, committing actions aimed at changing the constitutional order of the DPR and forcibly seizing power, aiding in the recruitment of mercenaries. In the DNR, mercenarism to foreign citizens faces punishment up to and including the death penalty.
On June 9, the first trial of foreigners involved in the conflict in Ukraine took place in the DPR. Then the Moroccan Brahim Saadoun and the British Aiden Aslin and Sean Pinner were sentenced to death for mercenarism. The defense appealed the verdict.