Prominent prisoner released in Myanmar

MYANMAR: Myanmar's second most prominent political prisoner, Mr Min Ko Naing, leader of the 1988 student democracy protests, …

MYANMAR: Myanmar's second most prominent political prisoner, Mr Min Ko Naing, leader of the 1988 student democracy protests, has been freed by the ruling generals, a source close to his family said early on Saturday.

Mr Naing, who had been in jail since March 1989, was released in Sittwe, 350 miles west of Yangon, and flown to the capital yesterday the source said.

The former Burma's most prominent political prisoner, democracy icon and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, remains under house arrest at her lakeside villa in Yangon despite constant calls from around the world for her freedom.

But the release of Mr Naing, a pseudonym taken by Mr Ko Paw Oo Tun during protests ended bloodily by the military with hundreds, possibly thousands, of deaths, could be of considerable significance, experts on Myanmar say.

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He was among nearly 4,000 people the ruling junta ordered freed after the purge of prime minister Mr Khin Nyunt and the intelligence apparatus he headed last month.

Experts have struggled to explain events in the murky realm of Myanmar military politics in the wake of the upheaval, but they agreed that releasing Mr Naing could signify a serious intent to move along the road to political reform.

State media said the mass release was of prisoners jailed "inappropriately" by Mr Khin Nyunt's intelligence apparatus, which has been accused of keeping people in jail long after their official sentences had run out.

It was unclear how many of the 1,300 or 1,400 political prisoners whom dissidents and human rights groups say were in Myanmar jails were to be included in the mass release.