Over 1,000 Pridnestrovie inmates to get amnesty, pardons in 2008

Female inmates of Tiraspol's Women's Prison #3 (shown) are among those who will benefit from this year's amnesty program in PMR

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - Will Pridnestrovie's Parliament soon be letting forty percent of the country's criminals back onto the streets? Or is the new Amnesty Law a humane act that will help non-violent offenders be reintegrated back into society?

These are questions that some of the 550,000 inhabitants of the unrecognized country are asking themselves after its legislature passed a sweeping resolution aimed at granting freedom to more than a thousand inmates this year.

The resolution on amnesty in commemoration of the 12th anniversary of adoption of the current PMR Constitution passed its first reading at Wednesday’s plenary, Parliament's Press Service reported. It will now be sent to President Igor Smirnov, in order to be signed into law and officially published.

" - An amnesty was declared in 2005. There’s a need for another one. 2569 convicts are in prisons now," said Member of Parliament Galina Antufeeva, who is head of the Legislation Committee.

MP Galina Antufeeva, Chairperson of the Legislation Committee of PMR's Parliament, says it is now time for a new amnesty. The last one took place in 2005.

Antufeeva says that amnesty will be declared for non-violent inmates who fall into a number of categories, including pregnant women and women having underage or disabled children, men over the age of 55 and women over the age of 50, disabled people, war veterans who fought in Pridnestrovie's 1992 war of independence, and those who worked on Chernobyl cleanup when neighboring Ukraine, like Pridnestrovie, was still part of the Soviet Union.

Sentence reduction

In some cases, prisoners will get their sentences reduced instead of a full pardon.

" - The term of imprisonment will be diminished for prisoners sentenced to six years’ imprisonment and the convicts who committed crime deliberately or being negligent," says Galina Antufeeva.

There will be an individual approach to each prisoner subject to amnesty. Preferential treatment will be given to the convicts who refunded losses (known as the concept of victim's compensation) and helped criminal investigators during the time prior to prosecution and sentencing. Parliament decided not to grant amnesty for people who committed grave crimes, repeat offenders and violent criminals.

" - Amnesty may be declared for more than 1,000 people: 250 convicts will be freed; the sentence of 500 prisoners will be shortened, and over 700 offenders serving conditional sentences will be released," says Antufeeva.

The amnesty will be declared within six months following its official publication.
(With information from vspmr.org)

See also:
» Transdniester's Parliament behind "de-Sovietization" changes
» Tiraspol prison conditions getting better with OSCE collaboration