President pardons assassins

Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev pardoned six of the nine people involved in a May 1999 plot to assassinate him and overthrow the government, Reuters news agency reported on Thursday. According to the report, seven people were sentenced in September to between 14 to 16 years in prison for their part in the conspiracy. A court in the capital Bishkek later reduced those terms to four to six years, with the other two alleged plotters being given suspended sentences. A spokesman for the president, Asein Isayev, said Akayev made the decision to pardon the six based on their appeals and the fact that their families would be left with no means of support, Reuters reported. Lawyers for the group have said that the assassination against them were fabricated. Kyrgyzstan had long been regarded as the most democratically oriented of the former Soviet Central Asian republics but Akayev, who won a third term in office in October amid speculation of election fraud, has come under increasing criticism from human rights groups and NGOs for clamping down on dissent over the past year.