Many released Cuba prisoners known to international rights groups

By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seventeen of the Cuban prisoners released under the agreement with the United States had been let go before Washington and Havana announced the deal on Dec. 17, a Cuban dissident leader said on Monday. According to a copy of the list of 53 names obtained by Reuters from a congressional source, they include members of prominent Cuba protest groups such as the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) and the Ladies in White. Elizardo Sanchez, president of the dissident Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, said 17 of those on the list had been released by the Cuban government before the agreement with Washington was announced. One of those, Juliet Michelena Diaz, a member of the Cuban Network of Community Journalists, was released in November. Three others - Ladies in White member Sonia Garro, her husband Ramon Munoz, and their neighbor, Eugenio Hernandez - were released on Dec. 9. Jose Daniel Ferrer, the leader of UNPACU, Cuba's largest dissident organization, said about 10 opposition activists remained in jail, after the 38 set free last week and those who were released previously. "While we thank the United States for its gesture in freeing the 38, we regret that there are some political prisoners - about 10 - who remain in prison," he told Reuters in Havana. Thirty-eight people were released last week, dissidents said, including two who were not on the list of 53 that the White House sent to Congress on Monday. (Additional reporting by Dan Trotta in Havana; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Bill Trott)