BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 8. The execution of an order on pardoning a number of convicted persons in Penitentiary Institution No. 4 for Female Convicts has begun in Azerbaijan, Trend reports.
The order affected five people serving sentences in this institution. As a result, three female convicts were released, and two convicts had their sentences reduced.
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has signed a decree on pardoning a number of convicts on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the national leader of the Azerbaijani people Heydar Aliyev. The pardon order is scheduled to be executed by May 10.
According to the Decree, as many as 801 convicts were pardoned, of which 463 people were released from imprisonment, 220 people from half of the unserved part of the punishment in the form of imprisonment, 118 people from other punishments not related to imprisonment (restriction of liberty, correctional labor, punishment in the form of a fine and persons sentenced to suspended sentence).
A total of 14 of the pardoned convicts are foreigners, 12 of them are being fully released from punishment, and two are from half of the sentence. Four convicted foreigners are subject to forced expulsion from the country after being released from punishment by the relevant sentence. Since other citizens of foreign countries are Azerbaijanis by ethnicity or their family members are citizens of Azerbaijan, forced expulsion will not be applied to them.
As many as 10 convicts were released from punishment on the basis of appeals from human rights organizations. Among them are journalist Elchin Mamed, Chairman of the Citizens and Development Party Ali Aliyev, as well as five people who were convicted in connection with the terrorist events, and 3 people in connection with the events in Ganja in 2018. It was decided to pardon these persons, taking into account their behavior during the term of serving their sentence, marital status, and health condition.
A total of 14 meetings of the Pardon Commission under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan have been held, at which about 2,400 documents were discussed, since January of this year.
This decree is the largest act of pardon adopted in the history of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan in terms of the number of persons to whom it applies in comparison with the pardon order of May 24, 2018, adopted on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, applied to 634 convicts.