<P> If, after a regular trial, a captured soldier is found to be a mercenary, then he can expect treatment as a common criminal and may face execution . As mercenary soldiers may not qualify as PoWs, they cannot expect repatriation at war's end . The best known post-World War II example of this was on 28 June 1976 when, at the end of the Luanda Trial, an Angolan court sentenced three Britons and an American to death and nine other mercenaries to prison terms ranging from 16 to 30 years . The four mercenaries sentenced to death were shot by a firing squad on 10 July 1976 . </P> <P> The legal status of civilian contractors depends upon the nature of their work and their nationalities with respect to that of the combatants . If they have not "in fact, taken a direct part in the hostilities" (APGC77 Art 47. b), they are not mercenaries but civilians who have non-combat support roles and are entitled to protection under the Third Geneva Convention (GCIII 4.1. 4). </P> <P> On 4 December 1989, the United Nations passed resolution 44 / 34, the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries . It entered into force on 20 October 2001 and is usually known as the UN Mercenary Convention . Article 1 contains the definition of a mercenary . Article 1.1 is similar to Article 47 of Protocol I, however Article 1.2 broadens the definition to include a non-national recruited to overthrow a "Government or otherwise undermining the constitutional order of a State; or Undermin (e) the territorial integrity of a State;" and "Is motivated to take part therein essentially by the desire for significant private gain and is prompted by the promise or payment of material compensation ..."--under Article 1.2 a person does not have to take a direct part in the hostilities in a planned coup d'état to be a mercenary . </P> <P> Critics have argued that the convention and APGC77 Art . 47 are designed to cover the activities of mercenaries in post-colonial Africa and do not address adequately the use of private military companies (PMCs) by sovereign states . </P>

Is it illegal to be a mercenary in the uk