Jordanian engineer denies having been held by Syrian authorities

Jordanian engineer Moussa Abu Hantach, a member of the Jordanian Engineers Union, has denied reports that he was arrested together with his colleague Riyadh Abu Hazim by the Syrian authorities when they passed through the Syrian territories in the way to Lebanon to take part in the Arab engineers conference held in Beirut last week, SANA reported.

Abu Hantach said in a statement to the Jordanian daily "al-Sabil" issued on Tuesday that "what had happened on the Lebanese-Syrian borders and the inability to contact the Jordanian delegation was because of the great number of Lebanese who are coming back from Syria to Lebanon, a matter which caused disturbances, and the whole situation evoked the Jordanian media to say that we had been arrested. Nothing of the sort had happened."

Abu Hantach continued that the Syrians completed their border measures soon after, adding that chairman of the Syrian Engineers Union invited "us to visit Syria together with our families for one week, and we accepted the invitation."