Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has granted amnesty to more than 1,000 convicts and released them from prisons across the country for Christmas, a prison official said, AFP reported.
Among those released on Monday were 1,004 Sri Lankan nationals who had been in prison because they could not pay fines, Prisons Commissioner Gamini Dissanayake said.
Sri Lanka is a predominantly Buddhist country and a similar number of prisoners were released in May for the Vesak holiday, which commemorates the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha.
The latest pardon came after police arrested nearly 15,000 people during a week-long military-backed anti-drug campaign that was suspended on Christmas Eve.
A police statement said 13,666 suspects were arrested and nearly 1,100 drug addicts were detained and sent for mandatory rehabilitation at a military center.
Prisons in the island nation are chronically overcrowded.
According to official data, the prisons, designed for 11,000 people, housed nearly 30,000 prisoners. /BGNES
