Clemency

North Macedonia's parliament has adopted a legislative amendment to pardon people facing imprisonment for violating Covid-19 safety rules.

Lawmakers late Monday voted 76-1 in favor of the amnesty which will affect more than 200 people currently facing trial as well as more than 90 people reportedly serving prison sentences.

The heir and de facto leader of Samsung group received a presidential pardon on Aug. 12, the latest example of South Korea's long tradition of freeing business leaders convicted of corruption on economic grounds.    

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals has rejected a request for early release and a pardon from Milan Lukic, the wartime leader of a Bosnian Serb paramilitary group who is currently serving a life sentence in Estonia.

In January 2022, after Srdjan Letic was sentenced to six months in prison for causing severe bodily injuries to Cvijetin Sofrenovic, the Basic Court in Brcko allowed him to commute his sentence for a fine of 9,000 euros, the Court has confirmed to BIRN.

President Donald Trump pardoned former chief strategist Steve Bannon as part of a flurry of clemency action in the final hours of his White House term that benefited more than 140 people, including rap performers, ex-members of Congress and other allies of him and his family.

President Donald Trump pardoned more than two dozen people, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, in the latest wave of clemency to benefit longtime associates and supporters.

President Donald Trump granted a full pardon on Tuesday to George Papadopoulos, a former campaign aide who pleaded guilty as part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

The Council of State, the Court of Auditors and the country's regular administrative courts will reopen on June 1, but criminal courts will wait until after June 21, according to a joint ministerial decision published by the Ministry of Justice on Friday.

On the bench opposite them would be the perpetrator who had committed the actual crime, and he would tell the story of how he and a certain colleague had stopped two boys on the side of the street, checked them, drove them somewhere in the dark and finished them off. He would reveal to the mother in detail how her son was actually murdered and where they buried his body.

The UN's special rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, Fabian Salvioli, said on Wednesday that measures to protect against COVID-19 in overcrowded jails should not lead to amnesties or pardons being granted to people convicted of serious violations of human rights, crimes against humanity, genocide or war crimes.