MINSK, 5 May (BelTA) – Members of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus have given the first reading and the second one to the bill on amnesty on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, BelTA has learned.
The bill was presented before the parliament by Internal Affairs Minister Yuri Karayev. The minister said that according to provisional data, as many as 5,372 convicts will be freed from punishment, including 1,985 to be released from prisons and 727 from open-type correctional institutions. As many as 2,660 convicts will be freed from penalties that do not include confinement.
Apart from that, the term of sentence will be reduced by one year for some 6,400 convicts. The list of such persons has been expanded in comparison with the last year's amnesty. It now includes underage citizens, who have committed drug trafficking crimes, and persons, who have committed corruption crimes.
Following the established tradition, the amnesty will apply to underage citizens, pregnant women, women and lonely men, who raise kids under 18, people with severe disabilities, and some other categories of citizens.
