LUHANSK. Feb 7 (Interfax) - Representatives of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) transferred 33 prisoners to Kyiv on Thursday to continue serving their sentences in Ukrainian prisons, an Interfax correspondent reported.
"Another agreement with Ukraine has been fulfilled in a unilateral manner. Thirty-three inmates convicted before 2014 have been handed over," Olga Kobtseva, the LPR's representative to the Trilateral Contact Group's humanitarian subgroup, told reporters.
The LPR leadership decided to transfer the inmates to Kyiv in response to a plea submitted by citizens living in territory controlled by Kyiv who said they could not visit their relatives serving terms in penitentiaries in the LPR's territory, she said.
Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Liudmyla Denisova has confirmed the inmates' transfer, which, according to Denisova, took place in the town of Schastia in the Luhansk region.
"Thirty-three inmates held in penitentiaries in certain districts of the temporarily occupied territory of the Luhansk region were handed over to us in the town of Schastia today to continue serving their sentences in territory controlled by the Ukrainian government," Denisova wrote on her Facebook page on Thursday.
In December 2018, "we took back 42 inmates, 12 of whom have already been released after serving their sentences," she said.
On December 12, 2018, LPR representatives handed over 42 inmates convicted before 2014 to Kyiv.