Russian State Duma has no plans to amnesty attackers on Nalchik

The Legislation Committee of the RF's State Duma is not preparing any bills on new amnesty, including for the participation in the attack on Nalchik in October 2005. No appeals to this end arrived to the State Duma from any public organization, as Alexander Urmanov, press-secretary of the chair of the Committee Pavel Krasheninnikov, informed the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. This information was confirmed with Olga Cheshko, an employee of the State Duma machinery.

The news that "on May 4 or 5 the State Duma should consider an amnesty bill" was spread by Vladimir Stepanov, an expert of the Public Movement "For Human Rights". He is confidently insisting that "State Duma leaders had instructed Pavel Krasheninnikov to urgently draft an amnesty statement."

Mr Stepanov has also reported that he knows that "the Kremlin stands in favour of amnesty," but the delay is caused by the stand of the "Edinaya Rossiya", which, unlike the CPRF and LDPR factions who unanimously supported the amnesty, voices against it.

In his opinion, it should be "a general amnesty", since Russia has too many prisoners: 710 inmates per 100,000 of population.

"The LDPR asserts that all prisoners under 35 convicted of minor crimes should be set free, while the CPRF stands for amnestying participants of warfare. I'm sure that it should be the broadest amnesty," Vladimir Stepanov has concluded.