BANGKOK (Reuters) -- Myanmar's generals have released eight of the 35 political prisoners "democracy icon" Aung San Suu Kyi said must be freed before she will accept her own liberty, UN human rights envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro said on Monday.

Pinheiro said the government was talking about freeing the other 27 members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy detained after a violent clash on May 30.

"The government has informed that these eight persons detained since 30th May have been released," the UN human rights envoy told Reuters in Bangkok after a week in Myanmar, during which he spent two hours with Suu Kyi.

"The government told me that more cases are being reviewed for release. We were discussing just about the 35," although by his count 153 people were detained after the May 30 violence near the northern city of Mandalay, Pinheiro said.

On Saturday, the Brazilian academic told a news conference in Yangon the military, which has ruled Myanmar since a 1962 coup, had freed Suu Kyi from house arrest but she had declined to accept her liberty until 35 colleagues were freed.

Suu Kyi was detained in a secret location -- for her own safety, the government said -- after the May 30 clash between her followers and government supporters.

The United States said it suspected "government-affiliated thugs" had ambushed Suu Kyi's convoy and exiled dissidents said dozens of Suu Kyi's supporters had been killed.

The government denied orchestrating the violence, which it blamed on Suu Kyi, and said four people were killed.

In September Suu Kyi, who has spent more than half of the past 14 years in detention, was allowed to go to hospital for an operation and then home to her lakeside Yangon villa and house arrest.

Pinheiro was only the second foreigner after UN special envoy Razali Ismail known to have seen Suu Kyi since she went home from hospital.