Mauritania's President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has pardoned and freed from prison 15 convicted Islamist extremists to mark the end of Ramadan, the West African country's justice ministry said on Thursday.
A further 20 Islamist prisoners awaiting trial were also pardoned as a gesture to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the feast after the Muslim holy month of fasting.
"This measure is in keeping with the spirit of tolerance which the President invoked at the start of the month of Ramadan," justice minister Abidine Ould Khairy said in a statement.
Mauritania, an Islamic state that straddles black and Arab Africa, is one of several countries in the vast Sahel region in which al Qaeda’s north African wing, known as AQIM, is known to operate.
Last month two Spanish aid workers who had been held hostage by AQIM for almost nine months were freed, an act security analysts said was linked to Mauritania’s repatriation to Mali of a militant convicted of their kidnapping.
Abdel Aziz, who seized power in a 2008 military coup, promised to crack down on al Qaeda when he overthrew Mauritania’s first freely elected president.
This February, Mauritania temporarily recalled its ambassador to Mali in a row about Mali releasing a Mauritanian Islamist from prison.
Mauritania said the former prisoner was a member of AQIM, and should have been handed over to Mauritanian authorities.
