Buthidaung: 341 prisoners who were about to complete or had just completed their prison terms were released from Buthidaung Prison in western Burma's Arakan State.
The prisoners included 310 males, 21 females, and 10 Bangladeshis who had been imprisoned in Burma for their respective offenses, and none were political prisoners, said an official of the prison.
"All of them were released at 8 am yesterday, and there is not a single inmate who had been imprisoned for political offenses," said the official on condition of anonymity.
He added that one former military intelligence officer who was jailed after the ousting of former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt was among those released.
There are some political prisoners among the 1,540 inmates in Buthidaung Prison, including U Ithariya, a monk who is serving a lengthy prison term for his role in the Saffron Revolution protests.
The prisoners were released as part of a nationwide amnesty recently announced by Burmese president U Thein Sein.
Human rights groups have slammed the presidential move as a sham that aims to ease economic sanctions by the west, as there were very few political prisoners among those released.
