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Iraq releases

3 Filipinos

BAGHDAD: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has ordered the release from prison of three Filipinos jailed in 1987 and 1988, official newspapers said on Saturday.

The pardon was granted following a plea from Philippine President Fidel Ramos in a letter delivered to Saddam by the speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives, Jose De Venecia, the papers said.

The three Filipinos, Ronaldo Ramos, 32, Albert Nibungco, 35, and Roberto Capiral, 33, were in the Philippine Embassy in Baghdad in Saturday and will leave the country on Monday, ambassador Rafael Sequis told reporters.

Sequis said Ramos was sentenced in 1987 to 25 years for murder and roberry in Iraq while Nibungco and Capiral were sentenced to 15 years each in 1988 for theft charges.

"They are extremely happy to rejoin their families shortly," the Philippine diplomat said.

These were the last three Filipinos jailed in Iraq. Six others were released previously on similar pardons from Saddam.

They were imprisoned in Abu Ghraib prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad, where most foreign prisoners are held.

In 1994, Saddam ordered the release of a Filipino driver sentenced in 1993 to six years in prison for entering Iraq illegally from Kuwait.

The first of the three was working as technician with an Iraqi company while the rest were hotel workers.

Sequis said more than 5,000 Filipinos used to work in Iraq before the Gulf War.

"Now there are only 40 Filipinos including some working with the U.N. agencies in the country," he said.

He said his country's political relations with Iraq were excellent but trade relations are suspended because of U.N. trade sanctions imposed on Iraq following its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Iraq has released several Arab, British, French and U.S. nationals in the past. Most were imprisoned for entering the country illegally.-Reuter