The problem of unfairly sentenced to life imprisonment must be comprehensively resolved

There are about 300 life-sentenced prisoners in Azerbaijan, all of them are kept in the Gobustan covered prison. In 2017  one of them, Shamsi Samedzade, who was kept in Gobustan at that time, told that 5% of the “life-sentenced” are generally innocent, they are in prison for random events, and their participation in these events was  unintentional, or they were imprisoned to hide the guilt of a real criminal. "They must be urgently released. 15% of those convicted for life are really guilty, they killed, but in their hearts, they are not criminals. They killed in a fit of anger, jealousy, in a fight, did not endure the insult. It is necessary to replace a life sentence with a specific one, and release them taking into account the time spent in prison. The remaining 80% are maniacs, they have no place among normal people. It is impossible to release such people," S. Samadzade said.

In February 2017, Interior Ministry General Zakir Nasirov was released. After 11 years in prison, his life sentence was replaced by 15 years, he was released, as he served 2/3. Two more "life-sentenced" in the same year reduced the terms of the court.

Shamsi Samedzade was released under a presidential amnesty in May 2022.

In October 2022, the criminal case against Aydin Gahramanov, who was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of poisoning his cohabitant and her niece, was reviewed. He repeatedly went to court, stated that he did not commit a crime. The court of higher instance considered the complaint of the convict justified, and returned the criminal case for reconsideration to the Court of Appeal. The panel of judges came to the conclusion that Gahramanov was innocent. He was released from the courtroom after 9 years at the age of 62.

Sergey Strelyaev, a life-sentenced prisoner on charges of double murder, who does not consider himself guilty, turned to Turan. He has been in the Gobustan prison since 2002. In court, he, who does not speak Azerbaijani, was not provided with an interpreter, and there is a medical certificate in the file about his beating during the investigation, which forced Sergei to sign a confession. The examinations appointed by the investigation were not carried out, the arguments were rigged, part of the evidence of innocence was destroyed. The investigation did not want to look for the real criminal, and shifted the blame on young Sergei. And in 2005-2006, the investigator Sahib Mammadyarov was dismissed from the authorities for official violations, the convict told Turan. All this is enough to reconsider the Strelyaev case.

In 2002, due to legal illiteracy, Strelyaev was late in filing an appeal, so the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan and the Strasbourg Court for Human Rights refused to extend the cassation period and left the verdict unchanged, Strelyaev's lawyer Tarlan Khanaliev told Turan.

For 20 years of life in a closed prison, Sergei Strelyaev wrote 8 poetry collections published in Baku through the efforts of his mother Anna. The leadership of the prison and the Ministry of Justice considers Sergei an exemplary prisoner, he has a good opinion of him. This gives Strelyaev a chance to get a pardon from the president, - the lawyer believes.

In accordance with  the Article 82.3 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan, life imprisonment by way of pardon can only be replaced by imprisonment for up to twenty-five years. Inhabitants of the Gobustan prison consider this clause of the law to be unfair. The prisoners of the Gobustan "Krytka" have repeatedly demanded to replace their terms of life imprisonment with 15 years in prison. They motivated their demands by the adoption in 2000 of the new Criminal Code of Azerbaijan and the need to re-examine their cases in accordance with the new norms.

The hope that the cases of "life-sentenced prisoners" will be reviewed appeared after the presidential order "On streamlining activities in the penitentiary sphere, humanizing the punishment policy, as well as expanding the use of alternative types of punishment and procedural measures of coercion that are not related to isolation from society", signed on 10 February 2017.

Sergey Strelyaev, many other life-sentenced prisoners - guilty and innocent, spent 20 or more years in difficult conditions in a closed prison. Together with him, family members bear a heavy punishment. Wives, mothers, old fathers can be seen every day in front of the gates of the prison in Gobustan, bent under the weight of food parcels, sometimes brought from the other end of the republic. Among them is a middle-aged engineer Anna Strelyaeva. They are not guilty of anything, just like a part of the citizens who are closed by high prison walls.

The public Committee for the protection of the rights of those sentenced to life imprisonment advocates for reviewing cases and alleviating the fate of some life-sentenced prisoners. Their appeal, containing the names of the participants in the first Karabakh war, was sent to the President of the country. The appeal emphasizes the 26-year stay in prison of war veterans Shaf Poladov, Arif Kazimov, Elchin Amiraslanov and others, also known in society as “Karabakh partisans” Mammad Mammadov (imprisoned for 20 years) and others. Prisoner Ali Guliyev and others are in almost 31 years in prison. More than 21 convicts are listed, the punishment for which was unreasonably severe for the crimes committed. Most of these people were sentenced to death, but in 1998 this sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. The committee considers this decision illegal, since the law allowed replacing execution with a 15-year sentence.