Four Lebanese generals held over the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the former prime minister, are set to hear whether they will be released by a UN special court.

The ruling is expected to be announcecd on Wednesday, two days after Daniel Bellemare, the special prosecutor in charge of the case, handed his recommendation to a pre-trial judge.

"This hearing will be used to announce the judge's decision," the prosecutor's spokeswoman, Radhia Achouri, said.

The generals - Mustafa Hamdan, the former head of the presidential guard, Jamil Sayyed, the security services director, Ali Hajj the domestic security chief and Raymond Azar, the military intelligence chief - have yet to be charged.

The tribunal's rules stipulate that the suspects and their lawyers will be allowed to address the court via videoconference if the judge decides to keep them in jail after the hearing starts at 1200 GMT.

Bomb blast

The special tribunal for Lebanon, which began work on March 1 and is based in The Hague, Netherlands, said three weeks ago that Lebanon had supplied a list of those detained over Hariri's assassination to the tribunal charged with trying the suspects.

But a Lebanese investigating judge earlier this month lifted arrest warrants against the four generals jailed since 2005 in connection with the killing.

However, the judge also ordered that the four remain in jail pending a decision by the tribunal on their fate.

Hariri was killed along with 22 others in a bomb blast on the Beirut seafront on February 14, 2005, stirring a political crisis and leading  to the withdrawal of Syrian troops in Lebanon after a 29-year presence.

A UN investigative commission has said there was evidence that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services were linked to Hariri's killing.

Damascus has denied any involvement.