Zambian jailed gay couple pardoned in presidential amnesty.

Zambia's President Edgar Lungu has pardoned two men who were jailed last year for having gay sex.

Their 15-year sentence triggered a diplomatic row, which ended in the recalling of the US ambassador.

The two men, Japhet Chataba and Steven Samba were listed among the names of nearly 3,000 prisoners to be pardoned to mark Africa Freedom Day, which fell on Monday.

Zambia is a deeply conservative society where homosexual acts are illegal.

This was legislation inherited from the British colonial era.

Last November, a High Court in the capital, Lusaka, sentenced the two men for having sex "against the order of nature".

They had booked into a lodge, and a worker peeped through an open window and saw them having sex, the court heard.