Presidential pardon for 4,000 ICoast inmates

More than 4,000 prisoners serving time for minor crimes in Ivory Coast are to receive a presidential pardon, the government said following a cabinet meeting Wednesday.

A statement said 4,200 prisoners of a total 19,000 nationwide would received pardons as "an act of clemency," and that, while their crimes would not be expunged from their records, the amnesty would "limit the consequences".

The measure coincided with a declaration by prison administration unions criticising overpopulation and a lack of resources for the system.

The pardons were announced almost two months after President Alassane Ouattara amnestied former first lady Simone Bgagbo, who had served seven years of a 20-year term for political violence that claimed several thousand lives in 2010-11.

Ouattara announced an amnesty for Gbagbo and 800 others in the name of national reconciliation on the eve of national independence day.