By Dave Sherwood
HAVANA, April 2 (Reuters) – Cuba on Thursday said it would free more than 2,000 prisoners from the island’s jails, according to state-run media, the second time this year its communist-run government has announced a prisoner amnesty amid talks with the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump.
Cuba’s state-run Granma newspaper called the measure a “humanitarian and sovereign gesture.”
The decision to release 2,010 prisoners “stemmed from a careful analysis of the crimes committed by those convicted, their good conduct in prison, the fact that they had served a significant portion of their sentence, and their state of health,” the report in Granma said.
The Cuban government has consistently rejected any suggestion it makes decisions under U.S. pressure. The timing of Thursday’s announcement, however, coincides with the most intense pressure campaign applied by Washington in decades.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the release.
The prisoner release, one of the largest such amnesties in recent years, comes one day after Cuba’s top diplomat in Washington publicly invited the U.S. government to help overhaul Cuba’s crippled economy as part of ongoing negotiations that have yet to yield results.
Cuba freed 51 prisoners in March under an agreement with the Vatican.
Human rights groups say the island’s Communist government is holding hundreds of political prisoners, with estimates varying.
It was unclear how many of the more than 2,000 prisoners subject to the latest release have been held on common crimes or charges related to anti-government protest.
(Reporting by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Shri Navaratnam)
