Ukrainian Parliament passes law on amnesty of ATO fighters
Ukrainian Parliament adopted the bill No. 4255 “On amnesty in 2016”, which grants an amnesty for convicted participants of anti-terrorist operations, who didn’t commit felonies.
As Interfax-Ukraine news agency reports, 247 MPs voted to adopt the legislation on Thursday.
The adopted law provides an amnesty and encompasses primarily those categories of convicts who are most vulnerable and socially unprotected. In particular, it is planned to grant an amnesty to minors and women along with men who have children under 16 or disabled children or disabled children of the first, second and third degrees, those suffering from TB and cancer; persons who have reached retirement age and combatants, who defended the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and who were directly involved in the ATO.
The main criteria for amnesty, according to the document, is insignificant social danger of crimes committed by a person who is serving a sentence, and other objective factors – illness, old age.
The law defines a category of prisoners which cannot be pardoned as well. Thus, the persons ‘who committed serious and particularly serious crimes, as well as persons who committed crimes using official position (corruption offences)’ cannot be pardoned.
As Ukrayinska Pravda reports, Parliament Speaker Andriy Parubiy said before adoption: “The draft law on amnesty in 2016 refers to amnesty of our soldiers who went to the front, sometimes without documents, our Maidan participants whose documents were burnt in the House of Trade Unions and they did not have enough documents to register in the combat zone.”
“We should adopt this law to avoid their persecution. We should not engage in demagogy and populism and should support our guys, who are under investigation now,” the Speaker said.
