Veteran Syrian communist opposition leader Riad Turk was released from jail, having served only a few months of a two-and-a-half year sentence, the official SANA news agency announced."In line with orders from President Bashar al-Assad and for humanitarian reasons, Mr. Riad Turk was freed today," SANA said in a brief statement.Turk, 72, was jailed in June after being convicted for undermining the Syrian constitution.

His release coincided with the 32nd anniversary of the accession to power of Assad's late father, Hafez.He was also serving the sentence for inciting sedition and spreading false information weakening the morale of the nation.

Turk was arrested in September 2001 during a round-up of 10 outspoken Syrian dissidents and sent to jail by the state security court, whose verdicts cannot be appealed.His lawyers expressed surprise at the "severe" verdict, after saying during the trial they believed he would only be jailed for about six months for having offended the regime.

Turk had only been released from jail three years earlier, after spending 17 years behind bars without trial.During a meeting at his home in the summer of 2001, he criticized the situation in Syria under former president Hafez al-Assad and called for a transition from "despotism to democracy".

Turk, a lawyer and native of Homs, 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of Damascus, was elected secretary general of an offshoot of the mainstream communist party in 1974. In 1980, he was accused of conspiracy with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and held in prison without trial for until his release in 1998.

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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad