MONTREAL -- Three jailed Cuban dissidents have been granted asylum in Canada and will arrive Monday, an immigration official said Saturday.

They will bring to 17 the number of political prisoners freed by Havana and given asylum here in the past two months, said Rene Mercier, spokesman for the immigration ministry.

He added that none of the three refugees was on the list of four prisoners that Prime Minister Jean Chretien asked Havana to free during his visit last week.

``They are new cases that the Cuban government decided to accept,'' he said, declining to identify the prisoners.

But Ismael Sambra, a dissident Cuban writer living in Canada since last year, said his son Guillermo was among those being freed. Guillermo Sambra, 27, has been in prison for five years on charges of subversion.