Yerevan hosts round table on life-termers' issue.

The Helsinki Committee of Armenia held on Thursday a round table discussion devoted to the problem of life imprisonment in Europe.

The head of the Committee, Avetik Ishkhanyan, opened the meeting, addressing the situation of life-termers in Armenia. He said there are currently 104 individuals serving life sentence, noting that the figure is very high for a country which has a population of 2.5 million.

He referred to Justice Minister Hrayr Tovmasyan’s recent statement expressing concerns on the large number of life-termers in Armenia.

It’s noteworthy that Slovenia, whose population is 2 million, has only two people sentenced for life. 

Zaruhi Muradyan, a member of a group dealing with life-termers’ problems, delivered a special report on the issue. She said 41 life-termers in Armenia were convicted for committing only one murder, while others were sentenced to life imprisonment for killing more than one individual.

Muradyan noted that a very small percentage of life-termers in Europe end up in prison, as most return to the society after being pardoned. 

After the discussion the Helsinki Committee and the initiative dealing with the issues of live-termers, joining the project of RA  Ministry of Justice "Books for life-termers" submitted 400 books to the Ministry.