Ilham Aliyev has signed a decree pardoning 266 prisoners, including Alikram Gumbatov, who in June 1993 declared an independent Talysh-Mughan Republic on Azerbaijan\'s southeastern border with Iran. Gumbatov was apprehended in December 1993 but escaped from jail nine months later. He was recaptured and sentenced to death in February 1996 for crimes against the state; that sentence was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment. Following Azerbaijan\'s acceptance in early 2001 into full membership of the Council of Europe, that organization designated Gumbatov a political prisoner and demanded he be retried; he was resentenced to life imprisonment in July 2003. Also on 3 September, President Aliyev stripped Gumbatov of his Azerbaijani citizenship, after which Gumbatov flew to the Netherlands, where his family now lives. (Turan)