Syria denies its involvement in keeping dozens of Lebanese detainees for years in jails, officials say, although several human rights groups say that at least 100 Lebanese are held in prisons.

Last month, Syria released about 50 political prisoners that mostly belonged to Muslim Brotherhood and there were two Lebanese among them.

Syrian Mazzeh prison was closed by the country’s president Bashar Assad after he succeeded his late father in 2000. Human right groups claim there can still be political prisoners in Syrian jails, including those from Lebanon.

Some human right movement supporters say they are well aware of the danger for such detainees in case the facts become public. ``We are asking about detainees, but we are scared. The Syrian regime is a twin brother of the (former) Iraqi regime and might take a step by getting rid of them,’’ said Ghazi Aad, director of the group Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile.

The groups denied to make an estimate of the number of the Lebanese kept in Syrian jails. ``I know there are prisoners, but we don’t know how many,’’ said Naamatallah Abi Nasr, an opposition legislator on the Lebanese parliament’s human rights committee.

Thousands of the lebanese took to the streets after the assassination of Lebanese opposition leader Rafik Hariri on February 14. The United Nations accused the pro-Syrian Lebanese government of failing to investigate properly the blast that killed 17 people.