Azerbaijan, Baku, 16 August / Trend corr. J.Babayeva / The Garabag Liberation Organization (GLO) applied to the Pardon Commission to release a youth group, which is known under the name of Garabag Guerrillas. In its appeal, the GLO mentioned that five years had passed since their arrest, some members were pardoned or released after serving of punishment time.
Unfortunately, majority of the Garabag Guerrillas, including Mammad Mammadov, were sentenced to life imprisoned, Alirza Babayev was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment, Rovshan Badalov, Khizir Margashvili, Mohammad Mammadov, Mushvig Gurbanov and Adalat Agayev are still in imprisoned. Rustam Asgarov, who was pardoned by the Presidential decree dated 2006, was arrested again.
The Azerbaijani President signed last pardon in March. Pardon decree concerned 59 people. A total of 58 of them were set free from the remained time of punishment and one person's punishment term was reduced by half. Forty four pardon decrees have been inked since 1995. About 4,600 prisons were pardoned at the last 43 pardons.
It is expected that the next pardon will be signed by the upcoming presidential elections in Azerbaijan to be held on 15 October.
The GLO thinks that each of these young people have purchased weapon, tried to create detachment forces, realized some illegal actions based on patriotic sense. The only objective, on which they purchased arms and tried to form detachment forces, is considered as partisan war against the Armenian invaders.
Although the organization's members admitted that there were crime moments in their action, they stated, as civil activists repeatedly stated, that they were sentenced in the gravest punishment, irrelevant to their actions.
Taking into account of the youth group Garabagh Partisans' severe state, the GLO asked the Commission on Pardon to forgive them or to make a decision to soften their punishments.
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