YANGON, Nov 26: The 9,248 Myanmar jail inmates promised freedom under the military regime's mass release programme will all be out by Saturday morning, but with only 40 dissidents among them, according to the opposition and a senior prison official.

"Everybody that we said would be released will be released tonight," Zaw Win, prison department director-general, told reporters at the gates of Insein jail on the outskirts of Yangon.

"We have already released the first batch of 3,937." He said inmates were being released from 41 prisons nation wide although reporters at Insein, the country's biggest jail, saw only about 1,000 released there on Friday.

The regime said through state media Thursday it would free 5,311 prisoners on top of the 3,937 planned releases announced a week earlier, taking the total to 9,248. Several hundred were freed in the past week including fewer than 30 dissidents, according to the opposition and witnesses, and there was no independent verification of the numbers of those freed Friday.

Zaw Win said another 10 dissidents would be among the second batch freed, in what would be a blow to the National League of Democracy (NLD) opposition party which was hoping for 400 in the first set of releases alone.

The timing of the release coincided with a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations which starts in Laos on Monday. Political developments in member country Myanmar are expected to be a major focus of the meeting. Speaking to reporters in Laos, Myanmar Foreign Minister Major-General Nyan Win said the releases had been welcomed by the international community. -AFP