Human rights activist Alexeyeva skeptical of declared economical amnesty

Lyudmila Alekseyeva file photo

(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 2, 2013) Russia’s oldest human rights activist, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alexeyeva said she criticized the economic amnesty declared by the Russian State Duma on Tuesday.

“The obligation to repay damages undercuts this entire amnesty. This is a fly in the ointment,” Alexeyeva told Interfax on Tuesday.

“If a person indeed did steal, then he will have to repay damages. This is good. But many businessmen are in jail not because they stole – they were imprisoned in order to take business away. Besides that their business was taken, will they have to repay something to get released?” Alexeyeva said.

“This amnesty will be a mockery for many innocently convicted people serving time in our penal colonies,” Alexeyeva said.

Former Yukos heads Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev will not be amnestied, Alexeyeva said. “Evidently, the amnesty was purposefully developed in such a way that neither Khodorkovsky nor Lebedev are eligible for it,” Alexeyeva said.

The Russian State Duma declared the economic amnesty on Tuesday and it will apply to several thousand people. The resolution releases people held criminally liable who were convicted for the first time, or convicted for business-related crimes for the first time. The compulsory condition for the amnesty is suspect or convict’s fulfillment of obligations to return property or to repay damages done to victims.

Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are serving time for the so-called second Yukos case.

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