The court in the Russian-occupied city of Luhansk sentenced Czech citizen Minh Hoang Tran to 13 years in prison for participating in the fighting on the side of Ukraine. The man who was captured in August near the city of Pokrovsk was described by the local prosecutor’s office as a mercenary receiving thousands of dollars a month.
A court in the city of Luhansk in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine sentenced Minh Hoang Tran, a Czech citizen of Vietnamese origin, who fought in Ukraine alongside the Ukrainian army, to 13 years in prison. He was captured by the Russians in August during the fighting for the city of Pokrovsk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. This was reported by the AFP agency on Thursday, writes TASR.
- The Czech citizen was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
- He fought alongside the Ukrainian army in Donbass.
- He fell into Russian captivity during the battles for Pokrovsk.
- The Czech Republic considers the Russian procedure a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Tran joined the Ukrainian army in May of this year and received a monthly salary of $6,000.
The Czech Republic criticizes the verdict of the pro-Russian authorities
Courts in Russia and in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories prosecute captured foreign fighters as mercenaries, for which they face up to 15 years in prison. The affected states point out that Russia should consider these soldiers as prisoners of war and provide them with protection according to the Geneva Conventions.
The Czech side criticized the verdict and the approach of the pro-Russian authorities.
“By refusing to recognize him as a prisoner of war and illegally prosecuting him as an alleged mercenary, Russia flagrantly violated its obligations under the Third Geneva Convention,” the Czech Foreign Ministry said, quoted by AFP.
