By Victor L. Simpson,  Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — Cuba has released dozens of prisoners whose freedom was sought by Pope John Paul II during his trip to the communist island last month, the Vatican said today.

Cuba called the releases an "act of clemency and of good will in memory of the visit," the Vatican said in a statement.

The prisoners' names were not given, but at least some of them were being held as dissidents.

The Vatican said "several dozen" prisoners had been freed, but did not give an exact number or state the crimes for which they were being held.

Cuba has also agreed to reduce the terms of another, unspecified group of prisoners, the Vatican said, calling the actions a "concrete prospect of hope for the future of that noble nation."

There was no immediate word from Cuba on any releases. In Cuba, opposition leaders and relatives of imprisoned dissidents waited to learn how many may have been freed, and who they were.

"We are waiting very close beside the telephone," said Gerardo Sanchez, a member of the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which monitors and documents political jailings in Cuba.

"Even a single case is good news for us," Sanchez said by telephone from Havana.

Jorge Gomez, whose brother Rene was imprisoned last summer, greeted news of the releases with joy.

"I have to suppose my brother will be one of (those released) because he is among the four most prominent" political prisoners, Gomez said, also by telephone from Havana.

Rene Gomez was arrested with three other leading dissidents for criticizing a draft plan for the Cuban Communist Party's 5th Party Congress.

The four said the plan focused on the glories of Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution but presented no solutions to the country's severe economic crisis.

Gomez said he did not know if leaving Cuba would be a condition of the prisoners' release.

"I know my brother would not want to leave," he said, "But as his brother I would personally rather have him be released and leave the country than to continue here as a prisoner."

A number of opposition activists were on the list of hundreds of prisoners presented to Cuban authorities by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state. The names had been sent to the Vatican by family members and human rights organizations.

In addition, the pope made a public appeal during his trip for Cuba to release "prisoners of conscience" and asked that they be allowed to remain on the island, not expelled as in past cases.

On Wednesday, a leading human rights activist in Havana said that Cuba had freed six dissidents, but said the release appeared unrelated to the Vatican's appeal.

Elizardo Sanchez, Gerardo's brother and head of the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, said then that he expected more, larger releases soon.

State Department spokesman James Rubin had called those initial releases "woefully inadequate" in light of what the pope had requested.

"These are a very small number. There are dozens of political prisoners in Cuba, and we would like to see them all released," Rubin said.

© 1998 Associated Press