Omar Hayssam, convicted of terrorism in Romania, is currently in a Syrian prison, said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in an interview with daily newspaper "Adevarul," adding the two states will discuss a further course of action once Hayssam has served his sentence. The Syrian President also said that the issue is not political, but judicial.

Romania and Syria signed an extradition treaty Wednesday evening, President Traian Basescu said Thursday. Also Wednesday, Romania and Syria signed a treaty allowing the mutual transfer of people sentenced to prison.

In 2007, a Romanian court found Hayssam guilty of masterminding the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists in Iraq in 2005, and sentenced him in absentia to 20 years in prison. Hayssam fled Romania in the first half of 2006, while under a terrorism inquiry for his role in the kidnapping.

Mediafax