HAVANA -- (AP) -- Cuba's government on Monday freed the second of four
 well-known government opponents whose prison sentences drew international
 protests last year, a relative confirmed.

 Economist Marta Beatriz Roque walked out of prison earlier in the day, her
 nephew Yoel Alfonso Roque told The Associated Press. He said he had been
 scheduled to visit his aunt in prison Monday morning.

 ``I don't know the reasons why, but I am very happy,'' the nephew said.

 The first of the four, engineer Felix Bonne Carcasses, was released Friday after
 serving three years of a four-year prison term.

 Roque had been sentenced to 3 1/2 years.

 The other two opponents still jailed are lawyer Rene Gomez Manzano, sentenced
 to four years; and Vladimiro Roca, the son of a revered Communist Party leader,
 to five years.

 The four were arrested in July 1997 for criticizing a Communist Party document
 that they said did not present solutions to Cuba's severe economic problems, and
 for holding several rare news conferences with foreign media.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald