According to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, Ethiopia told Sweden in May that it would pardon two detained Swedish journalists who were freed on Monday, but that it wanted to choose a suitable moment, Reuters.

Bildt said Sweden had been speaking to Ethiopia for months to secure the release of the two men. In May he met Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who died last month.

"An hour-long meeting gave the result that the prime minister was clear that there would be a pardon, but that they would be freed at a time when it could be seen in a bigger context," Bildt wrote on his blog.

In the end, the two men were freed in a mass pardon of more than 1,900 inmates ahead of the Ethiopian New Year.