HAVANA - Cuba published a list of 2900 pardoned prisoners here Wednesday, after President Raul Castro granted them amnesty last Friday in a speech to lawmakers.

The unprecedented decree, published by the government's Official Gazette, contains all the names of the inmates and the causes for which they were convicted. Most of those pardoned were over 60 years old, or patients, women, and juvenile delinquents without previous criminal records.

Castro said that the decision was a "humanitarian and sovereign gesture" to meet the requests of relatives of the prisoners and religious organizations.

He said that inmates who had been sentenced for spying, terrorism, murder, homicide, drug trafficking, rape or corruption are excluded from the list.