Kinshasa, Jul 28 (IANS): A total of 1,284 inmates at Makala Central Prison in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), will be granted conditional release to ease the prison's overcrowding, DRC State Minister for Justice Constant Mutamba announced.

The inmates will be released in groups of about 400 per week, said Mutamba, who approved the release of the first 421 inmates on Saturday from the country's largest prison, located in the DRC's capital Kinshasa, Xinhua news agency reported.

A decongestion commission was set up to examine the cases of prisoners eligible for conditional release. The prisoners, who were arrested for embezzlement of public funds, will not qualify, said the minister.

The first 421 prisoners released had served at least three-quarters of their sentence and were deemed to behave well during their incarceration.

The release is part of a series of measures, aimed at improving detention conditions, and reforming the DRC's prison system.

"We have taken the step of rehabilitating all the toilets in all the pavilions and rehabilitating the health centre," he noted.

"We are looking into drastically decongesting and rehabilitating the prison from top to bottom. We have identified a new site to build a modern prison."

Built for 1,500 prisoners in 1957, Makala Central Prison now holds around 15,000 prisoners in cells, according to local media.