Six Malaysians from the diving resort were freed earlier.

Additionally, free blacks of the North could easily be forced into slavery, whether they had been freed earlier or had never been slaves.

Scheduled for release on February 26, 2006, he was freed four days earlier.

If there had not been any such law, Silvia would have been freed at least four months earlier.

Friday was chosen, organizers said, because it is Juneteenth, which marks the day in 1865 that Texas slaves learned they had been freed two years earlier.

The group, who had been freed five days earlier, had flown from West Germany and were greeted by a crowd of 300,000 well-wishers.

Their driver and editorial fixer were freed a few weeks earlier.

Mr. Sanchez had been freed from prison for a parole violation five weeks earlier.

The noted Czechoslavak playwright and dissident had been freed earlier in the day after serving four months for supporting opposition rallies in the capital.