BEIRUT - Three Lebanese journalists held in custody for 44 days on charges of stealing evidence linked to the probe into the murder of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, have been freed on bail, judicial sources said.

Journalist Firas Hatum as well as cameramen Abdel-Azim Khayat and Mohammed Barbar, who work for the private Lebanese television station New TV, were released after paying bail of 500,000 pounds (about 330 dollars) each.

Last month, general prosecutor Said Mirza accused the men of breaking into the private home of Syrian national Mohammed al-Siddiq, a witness in the investigation into Hariri's assassination in a February 2005 car bombing.

He also accused them of stealing documents that constituted "important evidence" in the Hariri case from Siddiq's apartment in a town south of Beirut.

The three face jail sentences of between three and 15 years.

Siddiq was detained in France in October 2005 but has since been released although France has refused to repatriate him because Lebanon continues to enforce capital punishment.

He has told UN investigators probing the Hariri killing that the former billionaire prime minister had been murdered on the orders of the Lebanese and Syrian presidents.

Siddiq's apartment has been searched by the UN investigators who have since sealed the flat. -AFP