Thai prisoners set for amnesty

BANGKOK (Reuter) - Thai authorities will release 25,000 convicts next Wednesday to mark Queen Sirikit's 60th birthday, a government spokesman said yesterday.

British newspapers have speculated that Karyn Smith and Patricia Cahill, two Britons sentenced to long prison terms in 1990 and 1991 for heroin trafficking, would be freed under the amnesty. But a British embassy official said they fit none of the categories under which prisoners will be released.

Among those to be freed will be Revuth Chindapol, an MP jailed in May for involvement in riots on Phuket island in 1986.