Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe granted a Christmas amnesty to 1,004 convicts across the country on Monday, a prison official told AFP agency.

Prison Commissioner Gamini Dissanayake said the freed prisoners had been jailed for not being able to pay outstanding fines.

Sri Lankan newspaper Daily News said that of the prisoners to be released, 989 were male and 15 were female inmates.

Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka also freed convicts in May to mark Vesak, the festival which celebrates Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death.

Amnesty follows even larger mass arrest

The latest pardon came after police arrested nearly 15,000 people during a weeklong military-backed anti-narcotics drive that was halted on the eve of Christmas.

Authorities said 13,666 suspects were arrested and nearly 1,100 addicts were detained and sent for compulsory rehabilitation at a military-run facility, China's Xinhua news agency reported.

Sri Lankan jails are chronically overcrowded. As of Friday, there were nearly 30,000 inmates in facilities designed to house 11,000, according to official data.

Edited by: Alex Berry