Nearly 6,000 prisoners go at large under ‘Savchenko law’ – PGO

The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine (PGO) wants to amend the so-called “Savchenko law” considering it to be dangerous to society.

This was announced by Oleh Zalisko, the Deputy Prosecutor General responsible for compliance with law in the penitentiary facilities, Ukrinform news agency reports.

“The adoption of this bill by the Verkhovna Rada is too controversial and has led to the obvious negative consequences, which are now being increasingly covered in the media resulting in a public outcry,” he said.

According to Zalisko, the application of the law’s provisions by the courts has already allowed to early release and to significantly reduce the term for serving punishment to the most dangerous criminals who committed crime against national security, murder, rape, brigandage and robbery.

“The law does not cover the persons who have committed less serious crimes and who were not kept in custody,” he said.

Zalisko informed that as of April 15, the provision of the law was applied to 39,496 convicts. Apart from former senior officials Ihor Zvarych and Viktor Lozynsky, 5,961 people serving sentences for serious crimes were released early. In particular, ten people convicted for crimes against national security, 832 people convicted for willful murder, 531 people convicted for willful grievous bodily harm, 1120 people convicted for brigandage, 863 people convicted for robbery and 1340 people convicted for theft were released.

As a reminder, November 26, 2015, the Parliament of Ukraine passed the law authored by Nadiya Savchenko on amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine concerning the procedure of counting the duration of pre-trial detention when a person is sentenced to imprisonment. The law came into force on December 24, 2015.

According to the bill, when an individual who was held in pre-trial detention is being sentenced to prison, the court will count one day of pre-trial detention as two days of imprisonment.