The UK government will declare the Wagner Group a terrorist organization, meaning it will be illegal to be a member of or support the group, Britain’s public broadcaster BBC reported on Wednesday.
For violating the country’s anti-terror law, the defendants could face up to 14 years in prison or fines of up to 5,000 British pounds (more than 5,850 euros).
UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman said the Wagner Group is “violent and destructive” as well as “a Russian military instrument of [o Presidente] Vladimir Putin”, whose work in Ukraine and Africa is a “threat to global security”.
Braverman added that “the current destabilizing activities of the Wagner Group continue to serve the political objectives of the Kremlin”: “They are terrorists, pure and simple, and this prohibition order makes it clear in law.”
The minister of “shadow” Foreign Businesses, David Lammy, of the Labor Party, in the opposition, congratulates himself on the bill, months after urging the government to ban the mercenary group for being “responsible for atrocities in Ukraine and in everyone”.
“The bill is long overdue, but we are glad the government has finally acted. The government must now push for a special court to be set up to prosecute [Vladimir] Putin for the crime of aggression,” Lammy reacted.
Wagner Group militiamen implicated in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as Syria and African countries such as Mali, have been charged with a range of offences, including the murder and torture of civilians.
Source: TSF
