The amnesty is expected to free all women, the citizens of 11 countries and eight people who were sentenced to life for the alleged November 25, 2002 terrorist act against Saparmurat Niyazov.
There is still no information about Russian citizen and former Turkmen foreign minnister Boris Shikhmuradov who allegedly masterminded the attack.
Independent experts doubted these allegations from the very outset. Saparmurat Niyazov was very surprised to learn that terrorists had attacked his motorcade. News agencies quoted him as saying that he had not noticed anything.
In his televised address before the Turkmen People's Council, the supreme institution of state authority, Shikhmuradov said he was a criminal, a drug addict and a degenerate, and that he had long dreamed of assassinating the Turkmen President.
Saparmurat Niyazov watched Shikhmuradov's testimony in silence. In his book "I Am a Terrorist," which was published soon afterward, Shikhmuradov once again said money, drugs and other vices were the cause of his ruin. The book, which described the attempt on Niyazov's life in great detail, contradicted his previous claims that he was a leader of the opposition, but it had never planned any terrorist acts against Niyazov.
Boris Shikhmuradov's family, which lives in Moscow, does not know where he is, or whether he is alive or not. Moreover, Niyazov's repressive machine has steamrollered all his relatives in Ashgabat.
Shikhmuradov's wife, Tatiana Dmitrina, told Novoye Russkoye Slovo that his brother Konstantin, 55, an auto mechanic, is serving a prison term, and his 88-year-old mother does not receive any medical aid because her relatives are afraid to enter her home.
Konstantin Shikhmuradov's 20-year-old son Murad has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, and Boris Shikhmuradov's nephew, Bigench Beknazarov, is serving a 25-year prison term.
Turkmen authorities, which have abolished the death penalty, passed harsh prison sentences on those allegedly involved in the assassination attempt.
In 2005, 6,000 people, primarily small drug dealers, were released under an amnesty bill that did not pardon those convicted for the November 25, 2002 attack.
Experts say one-thirteenth of the country's population is currently in prisons.
Tatiana Dmitrina said her husband may be held at the newly constructed Ovadan-Depe maximum security prison 40 km from Ashgabat. Inmates are unable to communicate with the outside world because each of this notorious prison's three sectors is guarded by different security agencies.
In 1999, Saparmurat Niyazov signed the UN Convention Against Torture that orders signatory states to submit annual reports to the OSCE and other international organizations. However, Ashgabat has not submitted any reports in the last seven years.
Although Tatiana Dmitrina hopes her husband will be released, the amnesty may apply to other innocent "accomplices."
Saparmurat Niyazov has been doing much in the last few years to win favor with the international community. The possible amnesty of those convicted for the November 25, 2002 attack should be viewed in this context. We will soon find out whether Russian citizen Boris Shikhmuradov will be able to return to Moscow after the amnesty.
