Igor Smirnov, President of Transnistria, has pardoned Ernest Vardanyan, a journalist sentenced this past December to 15 years on charges of state treason and for spying for Moldova.

Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine. The Republic of Moldova does not recognize the secession.

At the time of his sentencing, the organization Reporters without Borders had condemned the court’s verdict and lawyers for Vardanyan said they would take the issue to the European Court of Human Rights.

Ernest Vardanyan was born in Gyumri. After the 1988 Spitak earthquake the family moved to Moldova.