3:24am UK, Saturday January 08, 2011
Two sisters have been freed from a US prison where they were serving life sentences for armed robbery on the condition that one donates a kidney to the other.
Jamie Scott (L) and her sister Gladys in Jackson, Mississippi
The siblings, Gladys and Jamie Scott, smiled and waved as they emerged from Central Mississippi Correctional Facility after 16 years in jail.
"Thank you, thank you," the pair shouted as they were driven past crowds of supporters who came to witness the release after a long campaign for their freedom.
Mississippi governor Haley Barbour suspended the jail sentences on the condition that Gladys Scott, 36, gave a kidney to her ill sister, Jamie, 38, who requires dialysis.
"It's been a long, hard road but we made it," Gladys Scott told a news conference.
"There were times when we wanted to give up but I told my sister… 'We're going to make it, we're coming up out of here, we're not going to die (in prison).'
"We are not bitter. We never would have made it through 16 years behind bars if we were full of hate."
Gladys said she was a willing donor for her sister. The pair plan to move to Florida, according to their lawyer.
They were convicted of robbing two men at gunpoint in 1993. The victims had been driving the sisters to a nightclub in northern Mississippi.
The siblings had no prior criminal record. Each was sentenced to two life terms.
Civil rights activists said the severity of their punishment far exceeded the seriousness of the crime.
Mr Barbour is a Republican who is considering whether to run for US president in 2012.
He said one reason for his decision to order their release was that Jamie's kidney dialysis and treatment was a financial burden on the state.
Michael Shapiro, at Hackensack University Medical Centre in New Jersey, has criticised imposing a condition for the release as unethical and possibly illegal.
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