The Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev issued a decree on 3 September pardoning 264 prisoners. This is the fourth amnesty decree signed by Ilham Aliyev during his presidency. (7 Sept 2004)
The pardoning decree
Under the pardoning decree 264 prisoners were pardoned. The imprisonment term of two prisoners was halved. The majority of the pardoned are those who were sentenced to imprisonment by military courts. Alikram Humbatov, who is charged with high treason, is also among pardoned.
The attitude
Majority of the local human rights defenders are dissatisfied with this pardoning decree, which did not refer to many political prisoners. “It is an appraisable step to release the young people, who were charged with being military deserter. But, the political prisoner issue has not fully solved. There are many people, who are in prison due to their political beliefs.” said a prominet human rights defender Novella Jafaroglu. “This is an imperfect pardoning. We will wage struggle to the end to release all the political prisoners that are in jail”, says a human rights defender Rena Sadaddinova. According to human rights activists, thanks to the pardoining decree 15 political prisoners were released. The human rights defenders estimate that the pardoning decree came as the Council of Europe hearings on Azerbaijan nears.
Unexpected pardoning
Alikram Humbatov, who was unexpectedly released from life imprisonment by a presidential pardoning decree on Friday, has been deprived of Azerbaijani citizenship. He has left for Holland just after the release from jail, as his family was provided with a status of political asylum seeker n The Hague.
Humbatov, who was not military trained and managed to receive the rank of colonel within a short period thanks to his foreign supporters and former defense minister Rahim Gaziyev, is noted with his handing over the positions of the Azerbaijani military units in Garabagh to Armenians and committing crimes against local residents.
Humbatov, who was allegedly collaborating with special service bodies of foreign countries, which were against Azerbaijan’s independence and, who declared himself the president of the self-proclaimed “Talish Mughan Republic” in the summer of 1993, was sentenced to life imprisonment after Heydar Aliyev came to power.
