A third US national has been in the custody of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) since last month, The Guardian has claimed, noting that the number of US citizens the pro-Russian troops in Ukraine have captured may be higher than previously thought.
Citing his family and a private volunteer group specializing in rescuing American citizens, the newspaper reported that 35-years old Suedi Murekezi was apprehended early in June in the Russian-controlled southern Ukrainian port city of Kherson.
Despite confirming that it was aware of Murekezi’s detention, the US Department of State declined to comment on the case.
Rwanda-born Suedi, who moved to the US fleeing the genocide in 1994, allegedly moved to Ukraine in 2018, after he retired from the US Air Force where he served for eight years but had been residing in Kherson since 2020.
His relatives insist that Suedi was falsely accused of taking part in pro-Ukrainian protests and claim he had not participated in the fighting.
Suedi is reportedly being held in the same prison in Donetsk in as two other captured American citizens, Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh. They’ve allegedly served in the Ukrainian military as volunteers prior to their capture but the DPR insist that they’re mercenaries and should be held accountable as such.
Meanwhile, DPR leader Denis Pushilin informed that the republic’s authorities have prepared an execution yard for the three foreign fighters sentenced to death as foreign mercenaries, Ukraina.ru news outlet reported on Wednesday.
All three – two Britons and one Moroccan – have filed appeals but if their appeals are not successful, the three convicts would be executed by firing squad.
The DPR’s laws do not specify fixed dates to carry out these sentences, and Pushilin added that executions normally are not public and information on them is not disclosed.
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