CUBA - Cuba offers to free 52 political prisoners

HAVANA (AP):

Cuba's Roman Catholic Church said yesterday that the communist government has agreed to free 52 political prisoners and allow them to leave the country in what would be the island's largest mass liberation of prisoners of conscience in decades.

Five would be released in a matter of hours and planned to head to Spain, while the remaining 47 would be liberated in "a process that will take three or four months, starting now," according to the statement by the office of Havana's Roman Catholic Archbishop Cardinal Jaime Ortega.

'Surprise' agreement

The deal was announced following a meeting between President Raul Castro and Ortega. Also participating was visiting Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos and his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez.

The scope of the agreement "is a surprise," said Elizardo Sanchez, head of the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation. "We were hoping for a significant release of prisoners, but not this."

Ortega's office said that those to be released were all members of a group of 75 leading political opposition activists, community organisers and journalists who report on Cuba in defiance of state controls on media. They were rounded up in a crackdown on dissent in March 2003.