About 1,000 businesspeople could be released this year under an economic amnesty that had initially ended earlier this month, business ombudsmen Boris Titov said on Tuesday.
The amnesty, which began on July 4 and officially ended six months later, was expected to pardon first-time offenders convicted of economic crimes, as well as those who had not yet been sentenced. Over 1,660 people were released during that period.
De facto, the amnesty is not over yet because courts continue to hear numerous appeals to soften charges of fraud, which does not fall under the amnesty, into milder charges.
Titov said that nearly 2,000 people had already had their charges revised and were now eligible for release. Another thousand cases are expected to be heard in the coming months.
It was originally planned to amnesty about 100,000 people, including 13,500 people serving prison sentences. But later the list of crimes that the amnesty covers was reduced by the Russian parliament, so it has become the matter of just several thousands to be freed.
Author: Julia Alieva