A German national has been sentenced to death in Belarus, the German foreign ministry has said, hours after a Belarusian human rights group said a German combat medic had been sentenced to death by firing squad, Ednews informs via The Guardian.

The German ministry did not name its national but the Viasna Human Rights Centre said earlier on Friday that Rico Krieger, 30, had been convicted under six articles of Belarus’s criminal code in a trial held at the end of June. It said he had been in custody since November.

The exact allegations against Krieger were not immediately clear and Belarus’s official news agency did not report anything about his case.

The German ministry statement said: “The Foreign Office and the embassy in Minsk are giving the person in question consular support and are working intensively with Belarusian authorities on his behalf.”

Belarus’s justice ministry, which had not reported any such case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case may be linked to the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment, a group of Belarusian volunteer fighters fighting against Russia in the war in Ukraine, Viasna reported.

This was the first time someone had been tried for mercenary activity in Belarus, the rights group said.

According to a LinkedIn profile Viasna said belonged to Krieger, he worked as a medical worker for the German Red Cross and as an armed security officer for the US embassy in Berlin.

The exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said she was “concerned” by the reports and was “collecting more information on his case”.