A mass pardon to mark the New Year that was issued by Czech President Václav Klaus included 305 foreign nationals. Among these the most numerous were Slovaks, accounting for 161.
The TASR newswire wrote that the total number of convicts pardoned by Klaus was 6,330 – far more than in Slovakia, where President Ivan Gašparovič also granted a mass pardon, which affected several hundred convicts. The Slovak measure affected only five foreign nationals – two Czechs, one Hungarian, one Romanian and one prisoner from Cameroon.
The pardons reduced the overall occupancy rate of Slovakia’s prisons from 108 percent to 99 percent, TASR added. However, the prisons administration also registers 1,800 convicted people who have not yet commenced their sentence; some of these might have their convictions deleted by the mass pardon, meaning that the total number of people affected may be even higher than currently calculated.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
