Authorities have pardoned 885 prisoners in honor of Sinai Liberation Day Thursday, according to a government security official.
The Interior Ministry's Prisons Department had formed a committee to examine files from the country's 42 prisons and identify some inmates for release.
All categories of crime were considered except for drug and arms trafficking or thuggery, as per prison regulations, according to the anonymous security source.
The source added that those being released do not include Osama Khalil, the body guard of Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairat al-Shater who was sentenced to one year in prison for unlicensed arms possession.
The official did not specify whether the 885 prisoners chosen had been released.
