No economic amnesty to Russian opposition leader, tycoon yet – ombudsman

(Interfax – July 23, 2013) Russia’s business ombudsman Boris Titov, who proposed the idea of economic amnesty, has said that it is difficult to grant it now to opposition leader Aleksey Navalnyy and former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovskiy from the legal standpoint. Titov said this at a news conference in Moscow on 23 July, as reported by Russian news agency Interfax on the same day. He added that since the economic amnesty is applied, 13 people have been released from prisons.

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“The economic amnesty is the process of systemic steps. No particular persons can receive individual decisions on them. It will be difficult to grant amnesty to Navalnyy or Khodorkovskiy now from the legal point of view,” Titov was quoted a s saying. He noted that the State Duma had already adopted the decree and it would be very difficult to change it. It is not clear at the moment how it can be done, Titov added.

file photo from political protest

Speaking about the number of those released from prisons under the economic amnesty plan, Titov said that 13 businessmen have been freed. “According to the Justice Ministry, 13 people have been granted amnesty in Russia so far,” Titov said. He added that eight people have been released from remand prisons and five from colonies.

“The first conclusion is that the amnesty started to be applied. One cannot wait for large figures immediately, because convicts should receive notifications of having paid damages,” Titov explained.