Sentence examples for show of leniency from inspiring English sources

MOSCOW — A Russian court reduced the prison sentence for a business partner of the oil tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky on Wednesday, a rare show of leniency amid a spate of criminal cases against opposition leaders.

HANOI, Vietnam — A Vietnamese appeals court has overturned one dissident's six-year prison sentence and halved the term of another in a rare show of leniency by the country's Communist authorities.

Both in China and abroad, some commentators quickly applauded what seemed like an official show of leniency toward the accused man, Du Daobin, a prolific author of online essays on issues of democracy and free speech.

But the show of leniency for Ms. Samutsevich, and indeed the entire appellate hearing, carried live on the Internet, offered at least the veneer of a normally functioning legal system, and seemed certain to be held up by Mr. Putin and others as evidence that Russia had handled the situation reasonably.

A court on Thursday confirmed an earlier ruling to reduce the prison sentence of Platon A. Lebedev, a former business partner of the oil tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, in a show of leniency that could result in Mr. Lebedev's release in July.

PAGE A8 ALLY OF SOUTH AFRICAN IS PAROLED A businessman convicted of bribing Jacob Zuma, the African National Congress leader widely expected to be South Africa's next president, was released on a medical parole after serving 28 months of a 15-year sentence, a show of leniency quickly assailed as an act of political favoritism.

But showing any sort of leniency to people convicted of blasphemy is something few politicians care to risk in a religiously conservative country where the influence of Islamist radicals is only increasing.

It looks more like a premeditated outcome to give the impression the government showed a modicum of leniency and that there was a real legal process – which is obviously a lie".

The authorities have shown little sign of leniency since the ship's seizure, despite an international campaign by Greenpeace to draw attention to the prosecutions and even an appeal from Italy's oil giant Eni, a partner of Gazprom, to show clemency for the crew, which includes an Italian, Cristian D'Alessandro.

"I don't think they've done it because of that necessarily, but they've shown a bit of leniency and I'm sure Wayne Rooney will repay it in kind".

While Iran's clerical establishment has been known to show a surprising level of leniency on a host of sensitive sociocultural topics, cornerstone Islamic legal principles such as ghesas present an immovable red line.