On Jordanian prisoners

Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister Marwan al-Hammoud said in Amman today that Syrian Prime Minister Mahmoud al-Zou'bi had promised to study including the Jordanians in the Syrian presidential pardon, at top levels in Syria.

In statements to the Jordanian daily al-Aswaq issued today, al-Hammoud said he had talked with al-Zou'bi about the question of the Jordanian prisoners in Syria and the possibility of including them within the Presidential pardon recently issued by President Hafez al-Assad.

The Jordanian paper said that the Presidential pardon in Syria does not include prisoners who are accused of crimes in the Syrian state security court and that the Jordanians are prisoners of "politics" and are accused in cases at the Syrian state security court, therefore the Jordanian detainees in the Syrian jails were excluded from the presidential pardon.

The paper added that the number of Jordanian detainees in Syria is 400.