President Lazarus Chakwera has pardoned 499 prisoners in a bid to reduce congestion in prisons amid the Coronavirus pandemic.
Minister of Homeland Security Richard Chimwendo Banda has confirmed that the prisoners have been released.
Recently, the Malawi Prison Service said 107 inmates and 21 members of staff at prisons across the country had tested positive for Covid-19.
At Chichiri Prison alone, there were 68 inmates and members of staff who had tested positive.
The prison service earlier this month embarked on transferring female prisoners from congested prisons to other prisons across the country as a way of creating space to new suspects on remand.
Malawi has recorded a total of 4,912 cases including 153 deaths and 2,550 recoveries.
