Azerbaijan’s Aliyev Shows Leniency Toward Convicts

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev signed an order on Thursday commuting the sentences of 423 prisoners, which went into effect immediately.

The order includes 412 convicts being released from the unserved part of their sentence. Another four were freed from the remainder of the conditional sentence, one person was freed from the remainder of the correctional labor and three people were freed from the penalty in the form of a fine. Two prisoners with life sentences had their sentences reduced to 25 or 15 years of imprisonment.

The order states that Aliyev’s decision was taken after considering appeals made by several of the convicts, their family members, the Commissioner for Human Rights, human rights organizations, as well as taking into consideration the personality of the convicts, their state of health, family circumstances, and behavior during time served.

Prisoners included in the president’s order include citizens of Iran, Pakistan, Georgia, Russia, China, Turkey and Ukraine. The Ministry of Justice and the State Migration Service were mandated to provide deportation arrangements for any foreigners per Azerbaijan’s Migration Code.