Beirut - Four high-ranking Lebanese generals who have been detained since 2005 for suspected involvement in the murder that year of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri submitted a request to the Lebanese investigating judge for their immediate release, a judicial source said Friday.

The source said Judge Sakr Sakr will be looking at the request Friday following deliberations with the public prosecution.

The four generals, who are currently held in Lebanon's central jail in Roumieh, 20 kilometers northeast of Beirut, are the former head of the presidential guard Mustafa Hamdan, security services director Jamil Sayyed, domestic security chief Ali Hajj and military intelligence chief Raymond Azar.

Their arrest was ordered by former chief investigator Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor who carried out the initial UN inquiry.

Mehlis concluded that there was evidence implicating Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services in the assassination.

Unconfirmed reports indicated that the four generals might be transfered to The Hague, once the UN Special tribunal is launched on March 1st, to try suspects in the Hariri assassination.

The pro-Syrian camp in Lebanon have always said that the arrest of the four generals was a political pressure imposed on Syria, since the four generals were close allies to Damascus and were cooperating with Syrian security forces during the Syrian political and military presence in the country, which ended in 2005 following the Hariri assassination.

On Wednesday, Judge Sakr released three of seven suspects held over the 2005 murder of Hariri.

The brothers were arrested in October 2005 and the Syrian was arrested in January 2006.

No reason was given by the judicial authorities for the release of the three, but observers speculated that a deal might have been struck with these men to testify against the key suspects in return for their freedom.

None of the seven who were arrested in connection with Hariri's murder four years ago have been indicted, as the Lebanese authorities have been waiting for the UN probe to conclude and the court be set up.

In remarks carried in the Lebanese media on Friday Mahmoud Abdel Aal, one of the three suspects who was released earlier this week, said: "We were free even when we were behind bars."

However, he denied any kind of "a certain deal" that led to his release.

"We were innocent since we were abducted," he added. (dpa)