A Syrian court on Wednesday granted bail to prominent opposition figure Louay Hussein, his lawyer said, more than three months after the veteran dissident was detained.
Meanwhile, four French lawmakers met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Wednesday during a private trip to the war-torn country. This news came after Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called for sanctions and an arms embargo to be imposed on Syria to punish the regime for its continued use of devastating barrel bombs.
Hussein, head of the Building the Syrian State party, "will be tried as a free man on the charges brought against him," human rights lawyer Michel Shammas told AFP.
Hussein, a prominent opposition leader, was arrested by the Syrian government in late 2014 after publishing an article in which he criticized the regime and warned that the Syrian state was faltering badly.
He was detained at the border with Lebanon in November and accused of "weakening national sentiments," a punishable crime.
This is Hussein’s third time in jail for political reasons. His first arrest was when he was a university student, when he was stripped of his civil rights and spent seven years in prison between 1984 and 1991. His second arrest was following the March 2011 protests against the Assad government. He was among the first in line to speak out in support of the uprising.