The seven converged on the home of Brigadier Mohammed Ibrahim, who had received the heaviest sentence of five years in prison.
Wearing civilian clothes and shouting "
It was not immediately clear why they were freed early but they had requested a presidential pardon on April 9, two days after their sentencing.
The officers could potentially have been executed for the case which analysts have said reflected political turmoil within the 24-year regime of President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
, who himself took power in a coup.
A military court ordered the soldiers dismissed from the military and issued sentences ranging from two to five years in prison for the plot.
They asked Bashir to pardon them as "political prisoners" under a wide-ranging amnesty which he announced early this month, the army said.
"Now we are free and the case is finished for us," Ibrahim said in brief comments to news hounds, after revellers slaughtered four sheep and hoisted the smiling officers on their shoulders.