Burma's junta freed at least two dozen members of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's political party today during a mass release of 4,000 people detained "inappropriately".
There was no official comment on who had been released following the purge of Prime Minister Khin Nyunt and the powerful intelligence apparatus he controlled. Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) is trying to assemble a list.
But NLD officials said they had confirmed that among them was Win Tin, a high-profile aide to Ms Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest. Win Tin was jailed in 1989, the year the NLD won a landslide election victory only to be denied power by the ruling generals.
It was unclear how many of the 1,300 or 1,400 political prisoners who dissidents and human rights groups say were in Burmese jails were to be included in the mass release, announced only late last night by state media.
They said 3,937 prisoners would be set free because "it is considered that they were inappropriately arrested by the National Intelligence Bureau that was dissolved on October 22".