AMMAN, Aug 5 (AFP) - Syria has released five Jordanian truck drivers detained last month but seized their vehicles loaded with Israeli goods bound for Iraq, a newspaper here reported Thursday.
Two of the drivers, Ahmed Battah and his brother Ali, told Al-Rai daily that the truckers were being asked to pay a 700,000-dollar fine to release the vehicles.
They urged the Jordanian government to help settle the case "because the drivers can't pay that sort of money, not even a tenth of it".
Syria's official news agency SANA reported earlier this month that it would release the five Jordanian truckers "within hours", after they were detained in early July for transporting Israeli goods bound for Iraq.
"The Jordanian embassy in Damascus has submitted an official apology to the Syrian foreign minister for the mistake occurred by the five trucks passing through Syrian territory carrying Israeli goods," SANA added.
The Jordanian drivers have said were unaware they were transporting goods from Israel, which has a 1994 peace treaty with Jordan but is technically still in a state of war with Syria.
"In line with the Arab League's office of boycotting Israel, customs intercepted a consignment of contraband products and Israeli goods in five vans at Nassib crossing" on the Jordan-Syria border, an official Syrian daily said.
The truckers had initially planned to drive into Iraq directly from Jordan but decided to travel via Syria and Turkey because of the dangers on the Amman-Baghdad highway.
"It is purely a customs issue involving forged documents or documents used in wrongful manner," Jordanian government spokeswoman Asma Khodr told reporters in mid-July.