PRO-DEMOCRACY campaigner James Mawdsley is to taste freedom tomorrow, after 415 days in solitary confinement in a Burmese prison.

Days after it was announced he would be deported, details of his release were revealed by the ruling military regime in Burma yesterday.

The 27-year-old human rights activist, jailed for 17 years for handing out pro-democracy literature in August last year, is to be handed over to British vice-consul Karen Williams at the gates of Jentung prison.

He will be flown to the Burmese capital, Rangoon, where he is expected to be reunited with his mother, Diana, before flying home to Britain, via Bangkok in neighbouring Thailand.

Mrs Mawdsley, a nurse from Brancepeth, near Durham, extended her stay in Burma after visiting James last week. She saw him in the prison where he was beaten by guards last month, after he had protested about being held in solitary confinement.

Speaking from Rangoon, shortly after hearing news of her son's release, Mrs Mawdsley said: "I'm still pinching myself it's all happening.

"We've just been told, and now we're going to ask permission if I can go up to Kentung to the prison. It's more likely that I'll have to wait to see him at the airport."

She said she was looking forward to James visiting her at her home.

James's sister Dr Emma Mawdsley, a geography lecturer and researcher at Durham University, said: "We understand they'll want to clear him away from Burma pretty quickly. What happens then, I really don't know."