BEIRUT (AFP) - Prominent Lebanese MP Walid Jumblatt, who has been charged in Syria with incitement against the government there, offered to help the Syrian opposition to establish a democratic regime.

"I tell the opposition that if it sees that I could serve its objectives in order to establish a democratic and free Syria, I am ready, if they want me to help," he told reporters.

Jumblatt was referring to the controversy raised by pro-Syrian groups in Lebanon after he received a delegation headed by the London-based spiritual guide of Syria's banned Muslim Brotherhood, Ali Sadr Eddin el-Bayanuni.

Jumblatt said he signed a petition presented to him by the delegation for the revocation of Law 49 in Syria. Adopted after the regime crushed Islamists in the 1980s, it stipulates the death sentence for those convicted of membership in the Brotherhood.

"When I signed this petition ... I think I was serving a Syrian Arab citizen seeking freedom. Any individual has the right of membership to any group or party he wishes.

"I do not hide my links with the Syrian opposition," he said, noting that he has also met in public with former Syrian vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam who defected and went into exile in France a few months ago.

Khaddam, Bayanuni and other exiled opposition leaders agreed in March to launch a new coalition with the aim of setting up a transitional government if the Damascus regime were to collapse.

Damascus has been under heavy Western pressure since a UN investigation implicated Syrian intelligence in last year's assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, once a close ally of Jumblatt.

Jumblatt, Lebanon's Druze leader, has repeatedly accused Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies of Hariri's murder and has also called for a regime change in Syria.

He also accused Syria of being responsible for the 1977 assassination of his father, Kamal Jumblatt, of former president Rene Moawad in 1989 and of several other Lebanese leaders.

On Wednesday, Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri said Jumblatt and his close aide, Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh, have been called to appear before a Syrian military court. A judicial source in Damascus earlier told AFP Jumblatt had been summoned by a Syrian military court to appear within seven days on charges of "inciting against Syria."

Jumblatt is a key member of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority that blamed Damascus for a series of bombings -- including a failed attempt on Hamadeh's life and Hariri's subsequent murder. Hariri's death triggered domestic and foreign protests that forced Syria to end its 29-year military presence and political domination of Lebanon last year.