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Thursday, August 18, 2016

THE DEATH PENALTY IS INTRODUCED IN THE DONETSK PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC



"Introducing the death penalty is not revenge, it is the highest degree of social protection."
- Vladimir Antyufeyev


            On this date, August 18, 2014, The Donetsk People’s Republic introduced the death penalty and military tribunals. I will post information about the death penalty in that State from several news sources.

  

Alexander Zakharchenko being escorted with his bodyguards from the Oplot Battalion.

Donetsk Separatists Introduce the Death Penalty for Treason

By Damien Sharkov 8/18/14 at 1:52 PM 

  

Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, attends a news conference in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, August 18, 2014. Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
The government of the breakaway region of Donetsk in Ukraine announced that it will introduce the death penalty for serious crimes, including treason, after the first meeting of the separatist Council of Ministers today.

“A legislative act provides for the death penalty for the gravest crimes,” a press release on the Donetsk People’s Republic’s (DNR) official website read.

The meeting was intended to set the founding stones of the military court justice system of the new republic, which is not recognised by the Ukrainian government.

The Council agreed that military tribunals will be sanctioned to pass the death penalty for offences including treason, espionage, attempts on the lives of the leadership and sabotage, the Moscow Times reported.

Separatist leaders agreed that the DNR will use the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code as a basis, RIA Novosti adds.

"Introducing the death penalty is not revenge, it is the highest degree of social protection," senior DNR leader, Vladimir Antyufeyev said in a statement which reiterated that the new justice code “would greatly facilitate the fight against looting and banditry”.

The military court system will have two tiers, one for offenders of rank squadron commander and lower, while the other will deal with offenders of rank battalion commander and higher.

Pro-Russian rebels have been accused of using capital punishment before. A document surfaced in May signed by Donetsk’s former Defence Minister Igor ‘Strlkov’ Ghirkin invoking a 1941 Stalin-era law to order the killing of two DNR officers on charges of looting.

More recently video footage of Crimean separatist leader Igor Bezler was posted online in June showing Bezler seemingly executing two pro-Kiev soldiers by firing squad.

While Monday’s meeting of DNR’s council of ministers only discussed military legislation, the Republic’s Foreign Minister Alexander Karaman insisted the separatist government would set about “on the path of humanization of the criminal law”.

The DNR declared independence from Ukraine following a referendum on 11 May this year. The results of the referendum were not recognised by the US or EU, but the separatist republic announced the election of its own government headed by Prime Minister Alexander Borodai.

The DNR’s chairman Denis Pushilin has stated the republic would ideally like to be adopted as a constituent member of the Russian Federation.

  
Igor Bezler, in green fatigues and without his walrus moustache, is at a briefing of policemen in Gorlovka. Photograph: Alexei Kravtsov

Betrayal, desertion could mean execution, Ukraine rebel leaders warn fighters
Source: Reuters - Mon, 18 Aug 2014 05:23 PM Author: Reuters

* Death penalty move comes amid reports of desertions, defections
* Separatists worried over looting, lawlessness, by fighters

By Thomas Grove

DONETSK, Ukraine, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Under growing pressure from a government offensive, the rebel leadership in Ukraine's battle-torn east warned its fighters on Monday that desertion and betrayal could be met by execution.

The warning appeared to signal a growing concern by the leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) over a breakdown of discipline in the fighting ranks as Kiev's military stepped up its offensive.

Apart from being worried about desertions, which the Kiev military says are now telling on rebel ranks, the separatists are also worried about widespread lawlessness.

"It is no secret that we have service personnel who carry out crimes. There are instances of looting and use of violence," Eduard Yakubovsky, the rebel republic's acting prosecutor-general, said in a video released by the rebels.

Witnesses in Donetsk say armed men have walked into car showrooms and simply driven off with the stock and firearms store owners have been forced to give up their stocks after rebels have demanded arms at gunpoint.

Rebels fear acts such as this are discrediting the separatist cause even as the leadership steps up a recruitment drive to try to hold back government forces.

In an announcement carried on its website, the leadership quoted top officials as expressing anger at looting and "unauthorised" use of force by some of its fighters against the civilian population.

Military tribunals would be set up and a criminal code which included the death penalty for a range of what it called very serious crimes including espionage, subversion and desertion, would be adopted, it said.

"The death penalty in this code will be for the following crimes. First, aggravated murder - that is the murder of two or more people, or with distinct cruelty, or of a child or a pregnant woman, and a range of other crimes," Yakubovsky said in the video, which showed him addressing a leadership meeting.

"Secondly, (it will be handed out) for certain military crimes committed in war times on the battlefield, such as handing over military hardware or weapons, desertion and some others," he said at the meeting on Sunday.

Rebel commander and Muscovite Igor Strelkov, who has since left his post, had previously ordered executions of those in his ranks who were known to have breaken the law while he was leading separatist forces in Slaviansk.

Sections of a criminal code published with the announcement on Monday said treason, espionage, attempts on the life of rebel leaders, rebellion, sabotage as well as murder and rape would all qualify for execution.

Alexander Zakharchenko, the new rebel leader in Donetsk, was also quoted on the rebel website as saying: "Servicemen must know what crimes they will be punished for."

"The death sentence is being brought in as a greater measure of social protection," Zakharchenko said at a news conference. "We haven't shot anyone yet."

Ukrainian military spokesman say that the rebels are now panicking and many are deserting or defecting to the Ukrainian side as the government forces makes inroads into rebel-held enclaves in the east, including Donetsk and Luhansk cities.

Zakharchenko said at the weekend however that the rebels had received a boost by securing supplies of fresh heavy military equipment from Russia and 1,200 trained Russian fighters.

"Introducing the death penalty is not revenge, it is the highest degree of social protection," another senior rebel leader, Vladimir Antyufeyev, was quoted as saying.

(Writing by Richard Balmforth; editing by Philippa Fletcher)


Donetsk Separatists Introduce Death Penalty for Treason

Reuters
Aug. 18 2014 15:52 

  

A separatist guards a checkpoint near the village of Rozsypne in the Donetsk region.
In a sign that separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine are struggling with discord in the ranks, Donetsk separatists announced Monday they were setting up military tribunals and bringing in the death penalty.

The self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, or DNR, said it would bring in military tribunals with the right to pass the death sentence for a string of offences including treason, espionage, attempts on the lives of the leadership and sabotage.

The announcement, issued on the Donetsk's separatists website, quoted leading rebel officials as saying that other serious violations including looting would also be dealt with harshly.

"Introducing the death penalty is not revenge, it is the highest degree of social protection," a senior separatist leader, Vladimir Antyufeyev, was quoted as saying.

Reports of executions orchestrated by separatists in eastern Ukraine have, for months, been used as a propaganda tool by both sides in the Ukraine conflict, though none of the reports has been independently verified.

In one of the most high-profile incidents to date, a document surfaced in May purportedly showed one of the separatists' main leaders, Igor Strelkov, had ordered the executions of two DNR militants on charges of looting.

The document apparently showed Strelkov, a Russian citizen also known as Igor Girkin, had based the ruling on a 1941 Stalin-era law introducing capital punishment for theft of property.

A month later, in June, separatist leader Igor “The Imp” Bezler published a video showing two blindfolded Ukrainian army officers apparently being shot to death by a firing squad as a warning to Ukraine government forces. He later dismissed the video as fake.

Material from the Moscow Times was included in this report.

  

"Introducing the death penalty is not revenge, it is the highest degree of social protection."
- Vladimir Antyufeyev

INTERNET SOURCE:

“DPR" decides to "protect people" by death penalty

KYIV, August 18 /Ukrinform/. The so-called Donetsk People's Republic introduced the death penalty and military tribunals.

According to the Ostrov with reference to the “DPR” press-center, August 17, the first meeting "of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the Donetsk People's Republic" was held, which approved the "Regulations on Military Courts of the Donetsk People's Republic" and "The Criminal Code of the Donetsk People's Republic," developed within the regulatory framework of the Russian Federation.

As specified, the death penalty is provided for the most serious crimes. Moreover, "the First Deputy Prime Minister of the DPR" Vladimir Antyufeyev said that introduction of the death penalty is "not a revenge, but the highest degree of social protection."

"We must be on the side of the victim, on the side of his family. We must protect the people," the Deputy Chairman of the Council Of Ministers” said.

Moreover, "the Presidium" has heard a report of "Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DPR" Aleksandr Karaman on basic activities of "the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPR." He, in particular, reported that "Foreign Ministry" has developed and implements priority measures to create "the image of the legal, democratic state” in the so-called republic.

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