Peru will amnesty some 3,000 inmates vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic who are in the country's 68 penal establishments, the Minister of Justice announced on Wednesday. "We are going to amnesty approximately 3,000 detainees who are part of groups vulnerable to the coronavirus," said Minister Fernando Castañeda on the TV channel ATV. He said the government would issue a decree on Thursday formalizing the measure.
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Among the prisoners who will benefit from the amnesty are pregnant women, prisoners with children under the age of three, prisoners sentenced to terms of less than four years, those over the age of 70 and who have not committed serious crimes. Also included in the amnesty are detainees who have only six months left to serve and those who have conditions recognized as increasing the risk of developing the disease. The list of release prisoners will be established by a commission of presidential amnesties.
According to authorities, the Covid-19 pandemic has killed at least seven people and more than 40 cases of contamination in Peruvian prisons, which are overcrowded. Twenty-six supervisors were also infected. Last Friday, two detainees died in a mutiny triggered by fear of the virus in a prison in northern Peru, after the death of another prisoner due to the disease. As of Wednesday, Peru has had 19,250 cases of contamination and 530 deaths since the virus was first detected in the country on March 6.