BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq has released more than 35,000 people from prisons and detention centers under a wide-reaching amnesty law passed earlier this year, the country’s Supreme Judicial Council said Monday.

Another nearly 144,000 people, including defendants detained pre-trial and those who are out on bail or facing arrest warrants, are eligible for release or to avoid imprisonment under the law, the council said.

It added that courts had recovered more than $34.4 million in restitution from people convicted of theft and corruption charges.

The law passed in January has been touted as a means to relieve prison overcrowding. The country’s justice minister said in May that the country’s 31 prisons were holding about 65,000 inmates despite being built to hold only about half that number.

The

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