Released after 5 months. One of five Britons captured in Ukraine and returned to the UK after a prisoner swap between Moscow and Kyiv, he said in an interview with the British tabloid. Sun beaten and forced to sing the Russian anthem in custody.
Aiden Aslin, 28, was taken prisoner in Ukraine, where he was fighting for Kyiv, and was sentenced to death as a mercenary.
After his surrender during the siege of Mariupol in April, he was interrogated by the military. “The soldier asked in Russian ‘where are you from?’ I told him he was from Britain and he punched me in the face,” he said.
According to his account, he was separated from the other prisoners and interrogated in the back of an armored vehicle.
Stabbings and death threats
“The officer was smoking a cigarette and he knelt in front of me to ask ‘do you know who I am?'” Aiden Aslin replied in the negative and the soldier told him in Russian “I am your death”.
“He said ‘do you see what I did to you?’ He showed me his back. He showed me his knife and I realized that he had kicked me with it.”
The officer then asked him if he wanted “a quick death or a beautiful death,” continued the Briton, whose partner is Ukrainian, to which he replied that he wanted a quick death.
“He smiled and said, ‘No, you’re going to have a wonderful death,'” Aiden Aslin told S.a.
Aiden Aslin’s family explained at the end of April that he had moved to Ukraine in 2018, where he met his partner and finally settled in Mykolaiv, in the south of the country. He had decided to join the Ukrainian Marine Corps and served in that unit for almost four years.
He had been sentenced to death in June for mercenary action by the Donetsk separatist authorities, along with another Briton and a Moroccan. “I didn’t think he would make it out alive,” he told the Sun.
Forced to sing the Russian anthem
He said he spent the next five months in a 4 foot by 6 foot cell. The prisoner heard the repetition of the Russian anthem and was ordered to stand up and sing or be beaten, and also to shout “glory to Russia”.
“After being forced to sing the Russian anthem every morning for the last six months, I think it’s time to learn something a little better and learn the Ukrainian anthem,” tweeted Aiden Aslin Sunday.
He also said his cell was infested with cockroaches and lice and he was deprived of daylight except when he was taken out to film propaganda videos or to communicate with the UK Foreign Office.
Abba 24 hours for another prisoner
Another former British prisoner, Shaun Pinner, also recounted his experience in detention at the Sun. After being beaten and electrocuted by Russian soldiers, Shaun Pinner was jailed in April. In his cell, he was forced to listen to songs by metal band Slipknot and Swedish band Abba 24 hours a day, he says.
“I don’t want to listen to another Abba song again. I already hated them anyway, so it was really torture,” the former prisoner said.
“One of the guards said he was going to kill me and send the video to my mother,” Shaun Pinner also said. The Briton also denounced the “cruel” theft of his wedding ring by Russian soldiers, calling this moment his “darkest day”.
After being sentenced to death with Aiden Aslin, he was transferred to another prison, where “the conditions were better but they still played music, and this time it was believe of Cher.”
prisoner exchange
In the Sun, Aiden Aslin thanked “from the bottom of his heart” the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich – under sanctions from the United Kingdom and the European Union – for his role in the release of the five Britons, who were able to return to their country after an exchange of prisoners favored by Saudi mediation. Shaun Pinner is also one of those detainees returned to the UK.
Five other prisoners, from the United States, Sweden, Morocco and Croatia, were released. according to the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They were directed to Saudi Arabia before returning to their respective countries.
“It is worth mentioning the incredible work done by Volodymyr Zelensky and Liz Truss to obtain our release and I look forward to continuing to push for the release of all our prisoners still held in the separatist camps in Donetsk and Russia.” said aiden aslin.
Source: BFM TV
