By Nabil Al Mulhem ans AFP
Albawaba.com - Damascus
Forty five Lebanese detained by Syria were freed on Monday and are reported to have crossed the border back to Lebanon, escorted by the Lebanese prosecutor Adnan Addoum, and Remon Azar, an official at the Judicial Council.
Eyewitnesses said that their relatives were waiting for them at the Syrian-Lebanese border crossing, at the Masna’a area.
AFP reported that the freed detainees will spend the night at the Defense Ministry in Beirut, quoting a Lebanese military source.
Lebanese sources had said that there were 269 Lebanese in Syrian jails, detained in most cases for political reasons.
Syrian sources told Albawaba.com that the authorities intend to “close the Lebanese prisoners’ file permanently.” They attributed the difference in estimating the prisoners' numbers to the fact that “the Lebanese included names of people missed during the Lebanese civil war.”
The sources told Albawaba.com that the Lebanese officials who accompanied the detainees on Monday also received files containing details of each person and “their crimes.”
A court source told AFP that a list of their names would be issued Tuesday, adding that "the freed prisoners are political detainees and not common law prisoners," the source said.
Earlier in the day, Addoum announced on his return from Damascus that Syria was going to free some 50 prisoners, 90 percent of them Lebanese, the rest Palestinians, late Monday.
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