Over 3,000 prisoners released in presidential pardon

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe will release 3,600 prisoners being held for various crimes in an effort to reduce chronic overcrowding in the country's jails. The prisons are currently housing at least 24,500 people in facilities designed for 16,000. Prisoners who qualify for the phased release include females sentenced before 1985, prisoners with unweaned children, women convicted of infanticide, abortion, or concealment of birth, and prisoners aged 60 and above with one year or less left of their sentence. Prisoners medically certified to be terminally ill or physically disabled who have one year or less to serve also qualified, the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported. Habitual criminals serving extended sentences, those awaiting death sentences, those serving sentences imposed by a court martial and escapees were among those who did not qualify. But while the release would provide relief for the government, which has been criticised for providing inadequate welfare and food to prisoners, the pardons could only be effective if proper rehabilitation had been given, cautioned Munyaradzi Bidi, director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association. Bidi was also concerned about the potential release of prisoners who had committed political crimes as this would be "grossly unfair" to their victims.