Win Tin, who is also known for his poetry, was frail but in remarkably good spirits after spending 19 years and three months in solitary confinement. After walking out of Rangoon's Insein jail on Monday, he vowed to continue his struggle against the regime that jailed him.

His arrest in 1989 was almostcertainly due to his seniority in the National League for Democracy (NLD) and his close relationship with its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest.

For a long time he was kept in a cell originally designed as a kennel and was refused bedding. "The first three or so years were horrid, like hell," he said. "I was tortured, I was interrogated and asked about my activities ... On one occasion they questioned me for five days and five nights non-stop. I was not allowed to sleep or eat, just to have a small cup of water."

On other occasions during Rangoon's damp, misty winters he was handcuffed to a seat in the prison yard and left there overnight. "I was there from 7pm to 3am and then I would be interrogated early in the morning ... Sometimes I was hooded and I could not see who was interrogating me. Then they would beat me. I complained to theofficers but they denied it and said I must have been hallucinating, yet I said I had been hit on the ears. Not just once but many times."

The release of Win Tin and seven other political prisoners comes exactly a year after last September's protests, which became the largest uprising against the country's military rulersfor 20 years when up to 100,000 Buddhist monks and ordinary members of the public took to the streets.

The regime said it was releasing the prisoners so that they could take part in an election, scheduled to be held in 2010.

Campaigners have welcomed the release of Win Tin and the other political prisoners, but have called for the remaining detainees to be freed. Among those still in jail are the leaders of the 88 Students Generation group, whose protests early last summer preceded the September uprising.

Benjamin Zawacki of Amnesty International, said: "While the release of Win Tin and his fellow prisoners is certainly the best news to come out of Burma for a long time, unfortunately they don't even represent 1 per cent of the political prisoners there."

Win Tin, whose original sentence was increased in 1996 after he wrote aletter to the UN revealing the conditions inside the prison, used to pen poems and stories for other prisoners. He said he spent all his time in solitary confinement. Younger inmates would sneak to his cell door to talk to him and the 15-minute visit he was allowed every fortnight was his only way of keeping up with news of what was happening outside the prison walls. He kept mentally strong by focusing on work to be done for his country's future, he said. "I don't know how I kept my sanity, but I knew I had to work."

Remarkably, he said he bears no personal grudge against the junta or its leader, General Than Shwe. But he added: "If we stay passive there is absolutely no hope for the future. This is why we are going to continue to struggle."

Courtesy: TheIndependent.co.uk