Nepali army to make public detainee names

The Royal Nepalese Army (RNA), which is not legally allowed to hold prisoners, has also promised to transfer the detainees to civilian authority, said Ian Martin, Nepal representative of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

The prisoners are being held in army barracks in the absence of other detention facilities.

The OHCHR won the concessions as part of its efforts to address human rights concerns that have mounted since King Gyanendra seized power with army backing to stem a Maoist rebellion that has claimed around 12,000 lives since 1996.

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, say that many of those killed were victims of extrajudicial executions by Nepal's police and troops.

In 2003 and 2004, the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances said it received more reports of disappearances at the hands of the Nepali government than from any other country.

"There are a very large number of outstanding cases of disappearances. At the moment I cannot put a figure on that, but it is in the hundreds," Martin told AFP in an interview.

"One of the problems is that there has never been a system whereby there is a central register of who is held by the army in the army barracks. The RNA is now working on setting up such a central register."