The President of the Republic, Filipe Nyusi, has granted pardons to 1119 convicts in prisons throughout the country, with effect from Sunday (22).

Speaking yesterday, Thursday (19), in Maputo, during his address to the nation, on the occasion of Christmas (family day) and the end of the year, Nyusi explained that of the total pardoned, 919 received it for completing half of their sentence, others for having been sentenced to prison for up to a year and one prisoner for suffering from a serious illness.

"This is the group of our compatriots who meet the necessary requirements to benefit from this exceptional measure," said the Mozambican head of state.

Last August, during the presentation of the Nation's General Situation Report 2024, the President of the Republic announced that he was going to grant pardons to 2,000 prisoners incarcerated in the country's various prisons.

However, yesterday, Filipe Nyusi said that he took the decision motivated by the firm conviction of man's capacity for regeneration, rehabilitation and social reintegration, of the fundamental principles and values contained in the country's current policy.

In addition to assessing the disciplinary nature of the period of imprisonment, Nyusi decided to withdraw the convicts for the same reason, in the spirit of celebrating Family Day, which falls on December 25, stressing that the requirements were the basis for the decision.

"We thought we could go up to two thousand, but that must be part of the requirements, and so the ones we didn't give were not given," he said.

Photo DR)