A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency on May 13, 2015 shows President Bashar al-Assad (C) meeting with Chairman of the Iranian Shura Council’s Committee for Foreign Policy and Syria’s security services chief Ali Mamluk in Damascus.

A senior Syrian official reported to be under house arrest by Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper appeared at a meeting broadcast on Syrian state TV on Wednesday.

Ali Mamlouk, head of the national security office, was seen sitting next to President Bashar al Assad during a meeting with visiting Iranian official Alaeddin Boroujerdi, who heads the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee.

A photo of the meeting also appeared with a news story posted on the official SANA news agency website and dated May 13.

The Telegraph said on Monday that Mamlouk, who is a pillar of the country’s security establishment, had been put under house arrest after he was suspected of plotting a coup against Assad.

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