Estonia wants law to allow criminals on the run to be stripped of special pension

TALLINN - Estonia's Interior Minister Andres Anvelt wishes to amend the law to enable to suspend the payment of a special pension before a guilty verdict from the court to suspected criminals who have fled prosecution.

The possibility would be necessary in a hypothetical situation where a person entitled to a special pension in Estonia flees the country to escape prosecution for a crime committed against Estonia.

As currently valid law does now allow to discontinue or suspend the payment of a special pension before the recipient of the pension has been found guilty by a court of law, a person suspected of committing a crime against the state will continue receiving the special pension if he or she relocates to a country which does not extradite individuals to Estonia for prosecution.

A situation where such a person will continue to receive a special pension from Estonia would undermine public sense of justice and be unfair toward the country paying the pension against which the alleged act of treason was committed, Anvelt said commenting on the declaration of intent to draw up the bill which exited the Ministry of Interior last week.