The Special Tribunal for Lebanon has ordered the release of four pro-Syrian security generals held in Lebanon since 2005 over the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

The tribunal, which said the order should take immediate effect, handed down its ruling after the prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, had requested the generals' release.

The Lebanese authorities later released the men, including Major General Jamil al-Sayyed, who received a hero's welcome upon his return home from the Roumieh prison, northeast of Beirut. They had been held since August 30, 2005.

In Beirut, heavy celebratory gunfire erupted when the international judge announced the decision. Supporters of the generals also fired rifles into the air in their home towns. Well-wishers flocked to their homes in Beirut.

Lebanese authorities have held the four men, who commanded Lebanon's pro-Syrian security establishment at the time of Hariri's death in 2005, without charge for nearly four years.

The release of the four generals will be seen as a blow to an anti-Syrian political alliance just weeks before a June 7 parliamentary election in which Hezbollah and other allies of Syria hope to overturn their opponents' slim majority.

However, it is unlikely to significantly affect the result.

Politicians on both sides expect the poll to be a close contest.

A detente in the last few months between Syria and Saudi Arabia, which supports the anti-Damascus bloc, is likely to help produce a broadly inclusive government after the election.

Insufficient evidence

Prosecutor Bellemare said in his filing to the court an assessment of evidence had not proved sufficiently credible to warrant indictments due to inconsistencies in potentially key witness statements and a lack of corroborative evidence.

In handing down the ruling, the presiding judge noted that  the prosecutor had therefore indicated he was unable to indict the four generals within the legal timeframe.

'Some witnesses modified their statements and ... a key witness expressly retracted his original statement which incriminated the persons detained,' the presiding judge said, referring to the prosecution's reasoning.

It was not immediately clear whether the prosecutor intended to try and indict the generals at a later stage.

Hariri and 22 other people were killed by a suicide truck bomb in Beirut on Feb. 14, 2005. Some Lebanese politicians, including his the slain politician's son Saad al-Hariri, have blamed the attack on neighbouring Syria.

Syria denied this, but the killing caused a worldwide outcry that forced an end to its 29-year military presence in Lebanon.

The Hague-based tribunal, which was set up by the United Nations, started work in March.

Saad al-Hariri welcomed the decision and said it showed the tribunal had no political agenda.

'I ... don't feel one iota of disappointment or fear over the fate of the international tribunal. What has happened is a clear declaration that the international tribunal has started work and it will reveal the truth,' Hariri said in a televised address.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, welcomed the decision to end the four generals' 'long arbitrary detention' and said it proved they had been held for political reasons.

'The release of the four officers ... constitutes a clear condemnation of the authorities that carried it out. The reasoning of vengeance ... does not bring truth or achieve justice,' the armed Shi'ite political group said in a statement. – Reuters