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BURUNDI RELEASES 673 PRISONERS January 11, 2006
Apunyu Bonny
(SomaliNet) A total of 673 prisoners found guilty of being involved in the 1993 assassination of the Burundi’s first democratically elected president were provisionally freed on Tuesday as part of a drive to ease overcrowding in jails.
Burundi’s president Pierre Nkurunziza in a New Year message said that prisoners who had served a quarter of their sentence would be freed, and promised to release all detainees accused of politically-motivated crimes this year.
"The decision we have taken is based on the report issued by the commission in charge of identifying ... those prisoners charged with political assassination, murder and breaching state security," Justice Minister Clotilde Niragira said.
The first multi-party elections in Burundi were held in 1993, months later President Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, was killed in an attempted army coup. The murder sparked a series of ethnic reprisals between majority Hutus and minority Tutsis who have long held the levers of power in Burundi. The violence mirrored earlier cycles of slaughter since independence from Belgium in 1962.
Burundi’s Justice Minister Clotilde Niragira said the commission would submit its findings to a special court made up of U.N. experts and Burundian judges who would determine the sentences to be handed down on suspects. She added that more prisoners will be freed when the commission has completed its inquiry,
A total of 9,000 prisoners are packed into jails across the tiny central African country of seven million.