President Vladimir Putin has pardoned a former Federal Security Service officer who was sentenced to 11 years in prison on a murder conviction in 2012.
The decree, a copy of which was published on the government's website for official legal information, pardons Dmitry Maximov and expunges his criminal record.
Maximov was convicted of killing a man in a street fight, news site Znak.com reported. He maintained a plea of innocence, telling the court that he had been robbed and beaten, and only regained consciousness once in police custody. Both he and the victim were drunk at the time of the incident.
In 2010 a court in Moscow acquitted Maximov by decision of a jury, but a Vladimir region military court later reversed the ruling.
More than 500 Vladimir residents signed a petition in support of Maximov. The local Public Chamber sent a letter to Putin, who headed the FSB from 1998 to 1999, pleading with him to pardon Maximov.
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