CAIRO, Egypt More than 150,000 prisoners, most of them held for cheating on state-subsidized food rations, will be freed under a presidential amnesty in Syria, an Arabic daily reported Wednesday. President Hafez Assad announced the general amnesty Monday that includes a variety of other crimes including desertion from the military, smuggling, foreign exchange violations and other economic offenses. The London-based Al Hayat newspaper said 150,000 people who will benefit were detained or convicted for crimes such as hoarding or selling food at higher price.

Most food items in Syria are state subsidized, and prices are controlled by the government. Another 2,200 people convicted of economic crimes will also benefit from the amnesty, Al Hayat said. Assad's announcement said the amnesty excludes drug trafficking, prostitution, bribery and smuggling with use of arms. But it made no mention of political prisoners, including Muslim fundamentalists who are waging a campaign to install an Islamic rule.

Al Hayat said a special amnesty might be issued for members of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, but it will only cover those who are not charged with carrying out armed attacks. Some communists are also expected to be released, it said. But Ali Sadreddine al-Beyanouni, the Brotherhood leader based in Amman, Jordan, said he is not hopeful that his jailed followers will be freed.

``Political prisoners, including the Brotherhood, are usually arrested under martial orders and ... are not included in an amnesty issued by a law,'' Al-Beyanouni told Azzaman, another London-based Arabic newspaper. Assad, who has been in power since 1970, has granted several amnesties in the past, the last major one in 1995. In May, he pardoned a communist leader who had spent 17 years in jail.

(AP)