Tajikistan softens stance on jailed Russian pilots

Tajik prosecutors have filed a protest to the regional court against a lower court’s decision to send two pilots of Russia’s Rolkan Airlines to jail for eight-and-a-half years and asked for a milder sentence, Russia Today reports on Thursday.

The Prosecutor's Office of the Khatlon Region in Tajikistan stated that the sentences delivered to Russian flight commander Vladimir Sadovnichy and his Estonian colleague Aleksey Rudenko were “too severe.”

Taking into consideration “the personalities of the convicted men, as well as the fact that they are citizens of countries that are Tajikistan’s strategic partners,” the prosecutors asked the regional court “to mitigate the sentences handed down by a court in the town of Kurgan-Tyube,” Shokhrukh Radzhabov of the Prosecutor’s Office told journalists, as cited by Interfax news agency.

But the Tajik prosecutor did not clarify whether the mitigation of punishment would mean a shorter prison term or a suspended sentence.