13,000 people convicted over business-related crimes could be amnestied – official

(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 11, 2013) Around 13,000 people convicted of business-related crimes could be amnestied, Representative of the Russian Presidential Commission for Entrepreneur’s Rights, Andrei Nazarov, said during the discussion in the Civic Chamber.

“Those 110,000 people about whom everyone is talking – this is the total number of people convicted for economic crimes. The expected amnesty could be related to around 13,000 people,” Nazarov said.

Nazarov said that amnestying businessmen could be a good signal to society and law enforcement.

Deputy Secretary of the Civic Chamber Vladislav Grib said that chamber members would work on the amnesty draft jointly with prosecutors. “We have not had amnesty for a long time. It is necessary to have it at least once every ten years. The Civic Chamber is creating a working group jointly with prosecutor’s office for more concrete work over the amnesty decree draft,” Grib said.

Nazarov said earlier during the discussion that authors of the amnesty draft decreased the number of articles of the Criminal Code, for which it was offered to amnesty businessmen, from 53 to 20.