Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr. K.Zarbaliyeva / Nazim Alakparov, the Deputy Justice Ministry of Azerbaijan and Chief of Penal Service, stated on 5 June that through the amnesty act, in honor of the 84th birthday anniversary celebrations of Heydar Aliyev, 700 convicted were released from prisons. Seven of the convicts were foreign citizens, including Iran, Russia and Ukraine.
Regarding the latest amnesty which will be carried out within 3 months, Alakparov stated that the exact number of those convicted; who would be released has not yet been defined. The penal services have submitted the relevant documents to the appropriate instances due to the issue. This has been the 8th Law on Amnesty since 1995. The present amnesty will cover nearly over 9,000 people, 1,500 of them will be released from prisons.
The 1st Amnesty Act was signed in May 2003 in honour of the 48th anniversary of victory over fascism. In compliance with the Act, of the 14,000 people that had applied, 3,400 convicts were released, 2,200 punishments of prisoners were excused, 5,400 people were indemnified and 2,000 people were released from criminal cases.
Seven acts of amnesties covered over 78,000 prisoners. More than 40 Decree on Pardon were applied on 4,378 people.