TEHRAN – A total of 5,421 inmates of involuntary crimes have been released during the first eight months of the current [Iranian calendar] year (began March 21) with the help of philanthropists and charities, Asadollah Joolaei, head of Blood Money Organization, has said.

Freeing prisoners of involuntary crimes is done in three ways. The first way is granting prisoners leave and the second way is providing a number of them with loans to be paid inside the prison.

The third way of assistance is the release of unintentional convicts by paying their debt.

Some 203 of these released prisoners were female convicts and the rest were male debtors who were incarcerated due to inability to pay financial debts or inability to pay dues (workshop accidents and traffic accidents), he said.

He went on to note that a total of 18 trillion rials (nearly $428 million at the official rate of 42,000 rials) has been the debt of the released prisoners.

Since 1990, more than 150,000 unintentional crime doers who had debts have been freed, he said on October 3.

Currently, there are 10,680 prisoners of unintentional crimes in the country, of whom 4,673 are eligible for assistance, he stated, adding, Tehran with 999 prisoners has the most unintentional crime prisoners, Sistan-

Baluchestan with 26 and Hormozgan with 46; have the smallest prisoner population.

14,600 inmates freed last year

Iranian benefactors helped release a total of 14,681 inmates of unintentional crimes across the country over the past Iranian calendar year (March 2020-March 2021), Hadi Sadeghi, an official with the Judiciary, has said.

Last year, a total of 35 trillion rials (nearly $833 million at the official rate of 42,000 rials) has been donated to pay the debt of the released prisoners.

As an annual tradition, benefactors come together in a ceremony to raise funds for releasing prisoners of unintentional crimes during the holy month of Ramadan (which started on April 13 this year), through which,

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has donated 5 billion rials (about $120,000).

Last year, heads of the three branches of the government and the private sector donated 6.5 billion rials (nearly $150,000) to release prisoners who had committed involuntary crimes.

Former President Hassan Rouhani, former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, and former Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi made a total of 3.9 billion rials (around $92,000) in contributions to free prisoners of unintentional crimes.

FB/MG