The Supreme Court of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has sentenced a serviceman of the Azov Battalion – an ultra-right-wing organization included in the Ukrainian Armed Forces – to 20 years’ imprisonment in a strict regime colony for killing a civilian in the city of Mariupol.
As confirmed by the DPR Military Prosecutor’s Office, the serviceman, Dimitri Smiti, was found guilty of murder and ill-treatment of the civilian population, as well as the use of methods prohibited in an armed conflict according to the Russian Criminal Code.
According to the version of the DPR authorities, at the end of March last year, Smiti shot an unarmed resident of Mariupol in the back with an AK-47 rifle with a silencer. The civilian reprimanded him for his attitude and expressed his hope that Russian troops would take control of the city before he died, Russian agency TASS reports.
This sentence of the DPR judiciary follows the one announced late last week, when the Supreme Court sentenced to 25 years in prison two Ukrainian soldiers also convicted of the crime of murdering unarmed civilians in the city of Mariupol.
The town of Mariupol, located in the southeastern corner of Ukraine on the shores of the Sea of Azov, was the scene of heavy fighting during the early stages of the war. After losing positions in almost the entire city, the Ukrainian troops took refuge in the Azovstal steel plant before surrendering.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
