Priyanka Gandhi turned emotional and cried when she met her in the Vellore Central Prison over a decade ago, Nalini Sriharan, one of the convicts freed in the former Prime Minister’s assassination case said here on Sunday.

Talking to reporters in Chennai a day after she walked out of jail where she spent 32 years, Nalini told reporters Priyanka Gandhi asked about the killing of her father Rajiv Gandhi when she met her in prison in 2008. Nalini said she divulged whatever she knew.

“She (Priyanka) was an angel. And she made me respect myself because... we were not treated properly in jail. We were not even allowed to sit in front of officers. We had to stand and talk. But when she came to meet me, she made me sit next to her. It was a very different experience for me,” she said.

Talking separately to a TV channel, Nalini said she felt sorry for the families of those who were killed in that blast. "I am very sorry for them. We have spent so many years thinking about it, and we are sorry.”

"They have lost their dear ones. I hope they will come out of that tragedy once and for all, any time," she added.

Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a suicide bomber while campaigning for an election in Tamil Nadu's Sriperumbudur in May 1991 by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a Sri Lankan group.

On whether she would meet the family of Rajiv Gandhi, Nalini said "I don't think they will meet me. I think the time has passed for them to see me."

Denying any role in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, Nalini said,  “I don't have any role at all, really. I know I'm convicted. But to my heart, and to my conscience... it knows what happened."

Claiming that she was charged in the case because she was part of the group that plotted it, she said,  "They were my husband's friends. So, I got acquainted with them. I'm a very reserved person. I don't talk to them. I helped when they need it, like going to shops or theatres or hotels or temples. I used to go with them. That's it. Other than that, I don't have any personal contact, or I don't know their family, where they belong."

Before her death sentence was commuted in 2001, Nalini said, she expected to be executed any time and prepared seven times to be hanged.

"Seven times they put up black warrant (order for execution) they used to wait for me," she said.