German Muslim Brotherhood member gets 12 years in Syria

Feb 11, 2007, 17:47 GMT

Damascus - A human rights organization said on Sunday that the Higher State Security Court in Syria had sentenced Mohamad Haider Zammar, a German national of Syrian origin, to 12 years in prison on charges of membership of the banned Islamist Muslim Brotherhood organization.

Dr Ammar Qurabi head of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said in a statement that Zammar was sentenced to the death penalty, but the sentence had been commuted to 12 years in prison.

Zammar was transferred to Syria in August 2002 and referred to the State Security Court last year after he was charged with belonging to the Hamburg al-Qaeda terrorist cell believed to have recruited the leaders of the September 11 attack on New York in 2001.

The organization said in the statement that US security agents had kidnapped Zammar at Casablanca airport and handed him over to the Syrian security authorities who then detained him.

Zammar became a German citizen in 1982 and was detained in Germany for some time in October 2001 on suspicion of terrorist links. He was then released for lack of evidence.