SIERRA LEONE on Thursday released 41 rebels from prison including Paolo Bangura, a former foreign minister, a government statement said. It said the detainees were freed in the afternoon from Freetown’s high-security Pademba Road prison. All were members of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group and had been held under a sweeping emergency law. The statement gave no other details. Bangura, who served as foreign minister during a junta that was in power between 1997-98, was the most prominent RUF member to be freed Thursday. The RUF, whose decade-old terror campaign against successive governments in Freetown has killed, maimed and injured tens of thousands, is demanding the release of all its members from prison, including its jailed leader Foday Sankoh. Sankoh was sentenced to death in 1998 on conviction of treason but granted amnesty and released in 1999 as part of a first deal with the RUF, before the rebels went on the offensive again. – AFP