The execution of the pardon order has begun in Azerbaijan, News.Az reports. 

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on Monday signed an order “On pardoning of a group of convicted persons on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of National Leader of the Azerbaijani people Heydar Aliyev” on May 8, 2023.

Under the order, 801 convicts were pardoned, of whom 463 persons were released from serving their sentence, 220 persons from serving half of the unserved part of their sentence, 118 persons from other punishments unrelated to imprisonment (restriction of liberty, correctional works, fines, conditional sentence).

At the same time, it should be noted that 14 of the pardoned convicts are foreigners. According to the order, 12 of them were released from the full sentence, and two from half of the sentence. According to the relevant verdicts, after release from punishment, forced removal of four foreign convicts outside the borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan is planned. Other foreign convicts are Azerbaijanis by nationality or their family members are citizens of the Republic of Azerbaijan, so, forced removal will not be applied to them.

In addition, 10 convicts were released from punishment based on the appeals of human rights organizations.

Among them were journalist Elchin Mammad, Chairman of the Citizen and Development Party Ali Aliyev, as well as five people were convicted in connection with the Tartar events, and three people were convicted in connection with the Ganja events that occurred in 2018. Taking into account that those persons have served the major part of their sentences, and their behavior during the period of serving their sentence, their family situation and health, a decision was made to pardon them.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of National Leader of the Azerbaijani people Heydar Aliyev, the Commission on Pardon Issues under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan have held 14 meetings since this January, and about 2,400 documents were discussed at those meetings.

It should be noted that this order is the biggest act on pardoning for the number of people covered ever adopted in the history of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan. For comparison, it should be noted that the Order on Pardoning dated May 24, 2018, adopted on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, was applied to 634 convicts.

News.Az