The next Presidential Order on Pardoning was executed

As it was reported, the Order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mr. Ilham Aliyev on Pardoning of some convicted persons dated March 16, 2019, has been executed.

It should be mentioned that upon investigating the appeals regarding pardon addressed to the country President by a number of convicts, their family members, the Commissioner for Human Rights, human rights organizations, considering the personality, health, family status, behavior during the imprisonment, based on the humanism principles, 431 convicts were pardoned.

Moreover, the sentence of one of the three life-time prisoners was replaced with 25 years of imprisonment and the other two persons’ punishment – with 20 years of imprisonment. One person sentenced to imprisonment, serving of which was postponed, was released from punishment.

According to the Constitutional Law on the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Ombudsman regularly addresses appeals to the Pardon Issues Commission each month taking into consideration the applications by the convicts themselves and their family members.

In accordance with the last Order on Pardoning, 54 convicts were pardoned with respect to the Commissioner’s appeals, including women and foreigners. During her term in office, nearly 700 convicts, including juveniles, women, elderly and other prisoners, were released by pardoning upon the Ombudsman’s motions.

The Head of the Ombudsman Office, Aydin Safikhanly, the head of the Department on Prevention of Torture and the National Preventive Group Rashid Rumzada, staff members of the Office, as well as the representatives of Ganja and Sheki Regional Centers of the Ombudsman, took part in the process of the execution of the Order on Pardoning at penitentiary establishments No. 1,2,4,6,7,9,15,17 and Treatment institutions, investigation facilities, as well as Sheki Penitentiary Establishment and station typed penitentiary institutions of the Ministry of Justice Penitentiary Service.

Within the events, congratulations and warm wishes were addressed to the convicts on the occasion of twofold holidays – pardoning and Novruz. It was mentioned that the National leader Heydar Aliyev had always paid attention to the humanism policy, ensuring human rights in his activity, and this policy is now being continued successfully by the country President Ilham Aliyev.

During the independence term there have been signed 65 Orders on Pardoning, 11 Amnesty Acts were adopted in that short period of time, and thousands of persons could join their families and society.

The representatives of the Ombudsman Office recommended the pardoned people to return their families and society, to get engage to healthy lifestyle and useful labor, to be faithful to statehood.

At the end, the documents regarding their release have been presented to pardoned prisoners and these persons expressed their gratitude to the country President.