The defense of Aiden Aslin, a British citizen who had been fighting for the Ukrainian Armed Forces and sentenced to death by a Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) court on June 9, has appealed the conviction, his lawyer, Pavel Kosovan, told TASS on Monday.
Kosovan revealed that the defense is contesting two counts of the verdict – ‘commission of crimes by a group of persons’ and ‘forcible seizure of power or violent retention of power’ – and to dismiss the case in this part “due to the absence of corpus delicti in the actions of the defendant.”
Aslin was found guilty on three counts – the third was ‘mercenarism.’ The Donetsk People’s Republic’s Criminal Code provides for punishment under this article for a period of up to seven years.
Aslin is the last of three foreign fighters facing death sentences in the DPR to appeal the decision. Late last month, the lawyer of his compatriot, Shaun Pinner, asked the court to replace the death sentence with life imprisonment. The court said at the time that the cassation would be considered within two months of the date the case was sent to the Supreme Court.