Lebanon to form crisis committee on Lebanese freed from Syria jails

Lebanon will form a crisis committee to search for and identify missing and forcibly disappeared persons in Syrian prisons.

Under the request of caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Cabinet Secretary-General Judge Mahmoud Makiya sent Monday a letter to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Social Affairs asking them to urgently coordinate with the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons in Lebanon and with the relevant authorities to identify, document, and facilitate the return of Lebanese detainees freed from Syrian prisons.

Islamist-led rebels had released thousands of prisoners from Syria's notorious jail system, including two Lebanese men.

For three decades, Syria was a dominant military and political force in Lebanon, before withdrawing its troops in 2005 under international pressure after the assassination of Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Rights groups say thousands of men, women and children disappeared at the hands of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's late father, during Lebanon's civil war.

In the northern Lebanon town of Chekka, Suheil Hamawi received a heartfelt welcome as he returned home Monday after languishing for 33 years in Syrian jails.

Hamawi's release gave renewed hope to hundreds of families in Lebanon who have demanded to know of the fate of thousands of prisoners believed to have disappeared at the hands of Syrian troops who entered Lebanon shortly after the outbreak of the 1975-1990 civil war.