BLANTYRE - Malawi’s President Joyce Banda released 377 prisoners to mark 48 years of independence from Britain, but left child rapists to “die” behind bars. Most of the inmates released had “served at least half of their sentences with good behaviour and were not convicted of serious crimes”, the home affairs ministry said. But Banda refused to sign parole papers for men who rape virgins in the belief that will cure them of HIV. “Let them die there. It will be possible to bury them in one mass grave. This is a serious matter,” she said in the local Chichewa diaiect in her maiden independence day speech during national a prayer meeting led by Christian and Muslim clerics.