You're reading: ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ leaders promise OSCE to court-martial its warlord if executions proven

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) says leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic have promised to court-martial warlord Lieutenant Colonel of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate Igor Bezler, nicknamed Bes (Devil), if information on executing hostages is proven to be true.

“Aide to the so-called ‘Donetsk People’s Republic Prime Minister’
[Alexander] Boroday, Sergey Kavtaradze, informed the SMM [Special
Monitoring Mission] that if a video posted on You Tube on June 5 was
proven to be genuine – in which a man named ‘Commander Bes’ (Igor
Bezler), based in Horlivka (20 kilometers north of Donetsk), is seen to
preside over the apparent executions of two men in order to force the
Ukrainian Government to release his own people – the ‘Donetsk People’s
Republic’s’ official position is that it would ‘court martial’ him and
impose a sentence consistent with a ‘war situation’,” the OSCE Special
Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a statement available on the OSCE
website on Friday.

A video posted on YouTube on June 5 shows what looks like the
shooting of two men and Bezler saying that these are captured Ukrainian
military officers whom the Ukrainian authorities refused to swap for a
group of gunmen.