Myanmar frees 5,000 more prisoners

A prison department official said inmates were being freed from dozens of jails throughout Myanmar and all 5,070 should be released by the end of Sunday.

"We are releasing them from 41 prisons around the country and we will finish today," the official said.

At least 26 truckloads carrying more than 1,300 inmates, most believed to be petty criminals, were seen rolling out of Insein prison, Myanmar's largest jail, Sunday to be released at other locations.

Well-known political prisoner Htwe Myint, 77, a senior member of Myanmar's Democracy Party, was confirmed as released by his family. He had been serving a seven-year sentence which had already expired, relatives said.

"I have just been to see him at our cousin's house. The whole family is very excited," Htwe Myint's niece told AFP.

Also freed was Democracy Party chairman Thu Wai, said too to be in his seventies, according to a spokesman of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party headed by detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

"I can confirm that both men were released," the NLD's U Lwin told AFP.

The two had been on the lists of prisoners of conscience compiled by international human rights groups.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International, which says 1,350 political prisoners remain imprisoned in Myanmar, cites both dissidents as serving seven-year jail terms for distributing leaflets in 1995 and have had their sentences extended since 2002.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate, was detained in May last year and is currently under her third stint of house arrest. The NLD announced late last month that authorities extended the detention by another year.