After he spoke to prisoners in the Sports Hall of Insein Prison in Rangoon before their release, Zaw Win, in answer to a reporter’s question, said, ‘Khin Nyunt is not detained in a prison. He has been under house arrest so he is excluded from the presidential commutation’.

On Tuesday, more than 800 prisoners in Insein Prison were released in the first batch. Most of the prisoners were sentenced on charges of gambling, rape, prostitution and human-trafficking, Zaw Win said. A reporter told Mizzima that he believed that most of the freed prisoners were serving sentences under four years.

Khin Nyunt was purged from the government on October 18, 2004, tried and found guilty on a charge of corruption. He was sentenced to 44 years under house arrest.

His reign as chief of military intelligence was notorious for brutally suppressing members of the pro-democracy movement in Burma in 1988 and torturing opposition members.

Prison chief Zaw Win said that more than 14,600 prisoners would be released across the country in accordance with the government’s commutation. A good portion of the more than 2,000 political prisoners across the country were sentenced during Khin Nyunt’s days in power. 

In accordance with the government’s order, 346 death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. Similarly, under the former military junta led by former Senior General Than Shwe, death sentences were sometimes commuted to life imprisonment.

In the previous months, opposition political parties, ethnic groups, the UN, the United States, the European Union and other governments had all asked the newly elected government to release all political prisoners as a show of national reconciliation. The Burmese government has consistently denied that it has any political prisoners in its jails.