Minister of Civil Service, Labor, and Social Security Clotilde Niragira of Burundi

Niragira said that those released would face a special commission to determine whether the prisoners committed abuses and crimes during the civil war in the central African country.

Reacting to Tuesday's prisoner release - which Justice Minister Clotilde Niragira said was based on report of a commission mandated to compile a list of prisoners convicted of political crimes - the leader of a human rights association said the commission must define clearly who qualified as a political detainee.

Justice Minister Niragira said Tuesday's release was in accordance with Nkurunziza's directive.

Niragira said her commission has four days to announce the final count.

Niragira said the parole programme was instituted "with the simple objective of reconciling Burundians and facilitating the work of a truth and reconciliation commission" that is to be set up in the near future with the collaboration of the United Nations.

Niragira said the first group of 673 parolees includes former soldiers convicted in the 1993 assasination of Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu and Burundi's first democratically elected president, whose murder sparked the civil war between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority that has claimed some 300 000 lives.

Reacting to Tuesday's prisoner release - which Justice Minister Clotilde Niragira said was.

Niragira said the detainees released on Tuesday were recognised as political prisoners by a commission comprised of politicians and magistrates.