“The most important thing now is to protect the young Brahim Saadoun, as a Moroccan citizen, from the danger of being executed, which requires urgent intervention by the Moroccan authorities”pleaded Amina Bouayach, the president of the National Council of Human Rights (CNDH), an official body. “The Council is closely following the details and developments of the file”Ms. Bouayach told local news site Madar21.
For its part, the Moroccan Collective Against the Death Penalty urged in a press release the authorities to “intervene urgently to save the life of the Moroccan citizen and demand that the death penalty not be carried out”. This Collective, which brings together several Moroccan associations for the defense of human rights, has asked the government to “guarantee the return (of Brahim Saadoun) born in his country in complete safety or that he can go to the country of his choice”.
A group of representatives from the House of Councillors, the upper house of parliament, filed on Tuesday to question Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita on what is being done to “save the life” by Mr. Saadoun. But the minister “was unable to respond to this request”said a Council official during the televised oral question session.
Brahim Saadoun, 21, was sentenced to death on June 9 – along with two Britons – by the Supreme Court of the pro-Russian separatist Donetsk People’s Republic for “to have taken part in the fighting as mercenaries”.
According to his father, Taher Saadoun, the young man, who obtained Ukrainian citizenship in 2020, “is not a mercenary” and was “victim of manipulation”. However, according to a friend of the young Moroccan, Dmytro Khrabstov, 20, Brahim, known to his friends in Ukraine as “Brian”, joined the Ukrainian army last summer and told them he wanted “die a hero”.
Silent until Monday evening, the Moroccan government reacted through its embassy in Ukraine, stating only that Mr. Saadoun “was captured wearing the uniform of the State Army of Ukraine, as a member of a unit of the Ukrainian Navy” and that he “is currently imprisoned by an entity that is recognized neither by the United Nations nor by Morocco”without further comment.
Morocco has adopted a position of neutrality in the UN in the war between Russia and Ukraine. This neutrality demonstrates Rabat’s desire not to alienate Russia, a member of the UN Security Council, on the question of the disputed territory of Western Sahara, a priority for Moroccan diplomacy.
