2007 after an unfair trial before the Syrian Supreme State Security Court. Amnesty also alleged that he was held in pre-trial detention for almost five years, much of it in incommunicado and solitary confinement, at the notorious Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence in Damascus. During his detention he was tortured and otherwise ill-treated. In June 2007 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention stated that Muhammad Haydar Zammar was detained arbitrarily and called upon the Syrian authorities to "remedy the situation". Amnesty International was not aware of the authorities having taken any steps to do so. Release Zammar was released as part of a prisoner exchange between the Islamist Syrian rebel group Ahrar al-Sham and the Syrian Government in September 2013. A member of the negotiating team told Der Spiegel that days after being released, Zammar travelled to the Syrian city of Raqqa and joined the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). He reportedly organised for funds to be sent to the Sinai-based militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, and negotiated for the group to swear allegiance to ISIL. Recapture Zammar was recaptured by members of the Kurdish People's Protection Units in March 2018 near the village of Darnij in Deir al-Zour. He is currently being held in a prison in Qamishli, Northern Syria, from where he gave an interview to the Washington Post in November 2018. See also Abu Hamza al-Masri Khalid El-Masri Imam Rapito affair References External links The Kidnapping of Muhammad Al-Zammar - A Document Archive 1961 births Living people Islamic terrorism in Germany German al-Qaeda members Syrian al-Qaeda members Alleged al-Qaeda recruiters German prisoners and detainees Prisoners and detainees of Syria People from Aleppo People subject to extraordinary rendition by the United States Far' Falastin prisoners Syrian emigrants to Germany Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Germany Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant members from Germany Hamburg cell