Kyrgyzstan violates international treaties not releasing the former head of the National Security Service (now the State Committee for National Security) from prison. Representatives of the Coalition against Torture in the Kyrgyz Republic stated to 24.kg news agency.
According to a lawyer of the organization Sardor Abdukhalilov, it is about violation of the norms of the Constitution, as well as the International Covenant on Civil Rights and a number of conventions which Kyrgyzstan has acceded to.
“According to the new Criminal and the Criminal Procedure Code, a convicted person, suffering from final stage of cancer or a mental disorder, an HIV-infected person can expect early release only if he or she has served two thirds of prison term. But Murat Sutalinov needs palliative care, not treatment. Moreover, his lawyers appealed to the court with a petition to release the terminally ill man even before the entry into force of the new criminal legislation,” he said.
The court was supposed to demonstrate humanism, and not to refer to the code.
Sardor Abdukhalilov
Earlier, judge of Leninsky District Court of Bishkek, Baktybek Sydygaliev, denied recommendation of the State Penitentiary Service and petition of the lawyer of the convict for early release due to his health condition, referring to the fact that the court had the right to grant it, but was not obliged. Human rights activists called keeping of Murat Sutalinov, who suffers from the fatal illness in penal colony, torture.
According to the verdict of the Supreme Court in a criminal case on April 7, 2010 events, Murat Sutalinov was sentenced to 25 years in prison with confiscation of property. The former head of the National Security Service is incurably ill. He is being held in penal colony 47. Every two weeks, Murat Sutalinov is taken for chemotherapy at the National Oncology Center.
