Three ex-offenders who spent more than 20 years in prison were pardoned by President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere today.<\/p>\n
The three ex-offenders are Albertino Shankar, Iliesa Duvuloco and Veremo Peceli Masidole.<\/p>\n
Shankar, who was sentenced to 21 years in prison, says he is looking forward to a brighter future.<\/p>\n
He says he does not want to talk about what happened in the past but looks forward to what the future holds for him.<\/p>\n
While officiating at the pardon ceremony, Ratu Wiliame says the Mercy Commission is a unique constitutional body that provides the opportunity for convicted citizens giving them hope for a review of their sentence.<\/p>\n
He adds that since 2000, the Mercy Commission has received 65 applications for pardon and recommended 37 grant pardons to the President.<\/p>\n
The President acknowledged the support of their wives, children and families and also welcomed the ex-offenders to society.<\/p>\n
The event was attended by Acting Chief Justice Salesi Temo, Attorney-General and Mercy Commission Chair Siromi Turaga, Minister for i-Taukei Ifereimi Vasu, Acting Commissioner of the Fiji Corrections Service Salote Panapasa and members of the Mercy Commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three ex-offenders who spent more than 20 years in prison were pardoned by President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere today. The three ex-offenders are Albertino Shankar, Iliesa Duvuloco and Veremo Peceli Masidole. Shankar, who was sentenced to 21 years in prison, says he is looking forward to a brighter future. He says he does not want to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiji-news","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3605,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3600\/revisions\/3605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}