As an indication of domestic peace and on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the independence of the Republic of Estonia, the newly elected Estonian President Konstantin Päts announced a political amnesty in 1938. Thus, 104 communists and 79 members of the War of Independence veterans’ movement were released from Patarei Prison. By the summer of 1940, 36 persons accused of espionage for the Soviet Union, and seven persons who had been imprisoned for political reasons, still remained in Patarei Prison alongside criminal offenders.