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Indulgent, allowed the nine incarcerated to go free (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

lenient

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'indulgent' is the definition.
(I know that indulgent can be written as lenient)

'allowed the nine incarcerated to go free' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is located in the answer.
an anagram of 'nine' is 'nien' which is within the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for lenient that I've seen before include "Easy, soft" , "Forgiving, gentle" , "Not severe in punishing" , "Merciful or easygoing" , "Tolerant, merciful" .)

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.
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