Russian writer had key role in 70,000 pardons

Anatoly Pristavkin, a writer who headed the Russian president’s pardons commission throughout the 1990s, died July 11 in Moscow. He was 76.

Pristavkin’s death was given wide coverage on Russia’s state news media, but the specific cause was not reported.

Pristavkin headed the Presidential Clemency Commission from its creation in 1992 until 2001, when it was abolished by Vladimir V. Putin shortly after he became president.

Under former President Boris Yeltsin, the commission, which included human rights activists, met every week to go through files containing the histories of hundreds of people stuck in overcrowded prisons and decide whom to recommend for pardoning.

On the commission’s recommendations, more than 70,000 people were pardoned over nine years, Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy said.

After Putin abolished the commission, the responsibility for pardons was passed to regional governments and the number of pardons dropped sharply. Only 72 people were pardoned in 2004, 42 in 2005, nine in 2006 and none last year, Ekho Moskvy said.

Putin, who became prime minister in May after eight years as president, praised Pristavkin after his death.

“Anatoly Ignatyevich [Pristavkin] lived his life with a high degree of dignity, maintaining a belief in humanitarian ideals and the triumph of justice,” Putin said in a statement.

Pristavkin, who wrote 26 books, is best known for “The Inseparable Twins,” based on the story of his childhood in an orphanage. He was born Oct. 17, 1931, in a town just outside Moscow and was orphaned during World War II.