Defense team intends to seek POW status for Ukrainian pilot Savchenko

13:14, 07.11.2014 1 min read

Defense lawyer of Ukrainian pilots Nadia Savchenko, Mark Feygin, said the pilot's lawyers will turn to the International Committee of the Red Cross to seek Savchenko's official designation as a prisoner-of-war.

"In the near future we intend to seek the POW status for Nadia Savchenko in order to free her from criminal liability in the Russian Federation," Feygin wrote on Twitter on Friday.

"If she is recognized as a POW at least for the June 17-23 period, the rest doesn't matter. This status will make it possible to exempt her from criminal prosecution and hand her over to Ukraine," the lawyer told Interfax on Friday.

If officially recognized as a POW, Savchenko has to be returned to eastern Ukraine and handed over to the Ukrainian authorities in accordance with the Minks agreements. After that, according to the Vienna Convention, Russia has to request her extradition from Ukraine due to her criminal prosecution, he said.