Interfax: DPR prepares new draft amnesty law that will take into account conditions of prisoner exchange on both sides

DONETSK. Nov 20 (Interfax) – Darya Morozova, human rights ombudsman in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said that the law on amnesty adopted by Ukraine does not suit the conflict in Donbas and that the DPR is working on its own version.

“The republic is not blackmailing anyone, but insists on the fulfillment of the sixth point of the Minsk memorandum, which talks about exchanging all for all. Those exchanges that take place don’t suit us because the criminal cases against the people who have returned are not being closed,” Morozova told reporters on Friday.

“A person is given a written promise not to leave the country [to sign] and he is put on the wanted persons list in Ukraine, he is considered a runaway. Exchanging all for all is not working, and it is not working on the Ukrainian side. [Ukrainian human rights ombudsman] Herashchenko said that the bill on amnesty was adopted on October 16, 2014, it was a regular draft law on amnesty, which passes in any country once in every four years, and it does not suit the conflict in Donbas,” she said.

She said everything that Ukraine adopts has to be approved by representatives of certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the DPR is now working on its own bill.

“We are working on a bill on amnesty. This law should be [passed] upon approval, which we are now trying to do in Minsk. I think it will be ready and will be presented by the political subgroup in the nearest future,” Morozova said.

According to earlier reports, Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Iryna Herashchenko after the latest meeting of the Contact Group in Minsk accused the DPR and the LPR of speculation over POWS who are in the territories controlled by the republics.