The Burmese military government has released five senior members of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy put under house arrest nearly six months ago, party officials say.
The five, all on the NLD's nine-member central executive committee, were put under house arrest after bloody clashes between Suu Kyi's supporters and government backers on May 30.
The officials said Than Tun, 82, Nyunt Wai, 81, Soe Myint, 80 and Hla Pe, 77 - all elected in 1990 general elections won by the NLD but ignored by the generals - were freed over the weekend.
Lun Tin, 82, was released this morning, leaving four central committee members in detention, the officials said.
Vice chairman Tin Oo was in jail in the town of Kalay and the three others were under house arrest in Yangon, they said.
Suu Kyi was detained in an unknown location - for her own protection, the generals claimed - after the May 30 violence until she went to hospital for an operation in September.
She was then allowed to go home under house arrest, but UN human rights envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who met her earlier this month, said Suu Kyi would not accept her own liberty until 35 NLD figures held since May 30 were released.
Pinheiro said the government had released eight of the 35 and was talking about freeing the other 27. It was not known whether the five elderly NLD members freed were among the 27 because Pinheiro did not give names.
Suu Kyi's telephone at her lakeside villa in Yangon is cut off and visitors have to get government permission to see her.