Muhammad Haidar Zammar
Muhammad Haidar Zammar ( Arabic محمد حيدر زمار Muhammad Haidar Zammār , often as Mohammed Haydar Zammar ; * 1961 in Aleppo , Syria ) is a jihadist with German citizenship and a suspected terrorist. The man from Hamburg was arrested by local security authorities on a trip to Morocco in December 2001 and handed over to the CIA. The CIA took him to Syria, where he was imprisoned until 2013. In Germany, the federal prosecutor's office suspected him of having supported a terrorist organization. He is said to have been an important al-Qaeda recruiter. He claims that he introduced some of the organizers of the September 11, 2001 attacks . It is unlikely that he knew anything about the plot of the attack. The federal prosecutor obtained an arrest warrant from the Federal Court of Justice for his membership in IS.
Early life
Zammar was born in Syria in 1961. He moved to Germany with his family at the age of ten and became a German citizen in 1982 . Even among his very religious family, Mohammed Zammar stood out with his extreme devotion from a young age. He was a well known person in the mosques of Hamburg . While he was still in high school , Zammar came into contact with representatives of the jihad through Mamoun Darkazanli , a Syrian and al-Qaida financier. Zammar completed an apprenticeship in metal engineering and intended to work for Mercedes-Benz . In Saudi Arabia he first worked as a translator and later came back to take up work as a truck driver in Hamburg. In 1991, he decided to make jihad his full-time job.
He fled to Afghanistan via Pakistan and took part in training as a mujahideen fighter. His training units included, among other things, the handling of weapons and explosives as well as war tactics. The performance was acceptable and he was transferred to an elite training camp near Jalalabad . After a year he received his degree there and returned to Hamburg.
Zammar traveled extensively over the next few years. While working as a mechanic , he had extended stays in Syria , Jordan , Turkey and Sweden . In 1995 he traveled to Bosnia to fight there. In 1996 Zammar visited Afghanistan a second time, this time to become a member of al-Qaeda. It is reported that he received a personal invitation from Osama bin Laden .
Time as a suspected al-Qaeda recruiter
When Zammar returned to Hamburg, he became a minor celebrity in the local Muslim community. He made regular enthusiastic speeches on behalf of bin Laden and other representatives of jihad. During this time, the German police began formal investigations into his person. During this time, Zammar himself had regular short stays in Afghanistan.
Mohammed Atta , a very conservative Muslim and later assassin on September 11th, became friends with Zammar around 1998. Zammar was repeatedly quoted as saying that he personally recruited Atta and other kidnappers for al-Qaeda, even though there was no confirmation. Zammar continued to meet regularly with Mounir El Motassadeq during this time .
In 1998, the German authorities stepped up monitoring of Zammar. He was occasionally followed, his phone tapped, and all his calls recorded. The German authorities shared most of their information with the CIA , including Zammar's telephone contacts with kidnappers Marwan al-Shehhi , Mohammed Atta , Ramzi bin al-Shaiba and Said Bahaji .
Atta, al-Shehhi and bin al-Schaiba formed the Hamburg cell in November 1998. Atta is seen as the leader of the group and Zammar is seen more as the key contact for international relations. Zammar may have been aware that there was a plan for airplane hijackings in the United States.
In the summer of 1999, US intelligence discovered that Zammar was in direct contact with one of bin Laden's chief operations coordinators. However, the USA did not share this information with the German secret service. It is also known that Zammar met regularly with Said Bahaji in Germany in 2000.
German press and German television became increasingly aware of him. There are, for example, recordings of how journalists filmed and tried to interview him when he came out of the gate of his former place of work and was expected by his wife in a car in front of the gate. He tried to attack the journalists.
When a special commission was set up in Hamburg immediately after the 9/11 attacks, Zammar's attention quickly fell. He was watched every step of the way. Initially, however, there was no initial suspicion of having participated in or supported the attacks. However, when he was interrogated in the investigation of the Federal Public Prosecutor against the fugitive Said Bahaji , he reported on his knowledge of the members of the Hamburg cell and thus drew the suspicion of having supported a terrorist group. On October 14, 2001, the Federal Public Prosecutor initiated an investigation against him.
Captured in 2001
German investigators found out about Zammar's travel plans at an early stage. They observed that he was buying a ticket to Casablanca and back at Hamburg Airport. Neither the Federal Criminal Police Office nor the Federal Public Prosecutor saw any reason to stop the trip to Morocco. Apparently there was no urgent suspicion against him.
On October 27, 2001, Zammar left for Morocco . The Moroccan authorities had been informed by the German security authorities about Zammar's travel plans and his connections to the Hamburg cell. The Moroccans were asked to monitor him and notify him immediately if he was to leave. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested by the Moroccan police with the help of the United States. Although he is a German citizen and was observed by the Germans, the Federal Republic of Germany was not officially informed.
Instead of being deported to the USA or Germany, Zammar was quietly brought to Syria to be held indefinitely in the notorious Far'-Falastin remand prison in Damascus . According to the Syrian view, Zammar is a Syrian citizen as he has never been released from his citizenship .
Time magazine reported:
- "Representatives of the US in Damascus sent written inquiries about Zammar to the Syrians, who in turn sent Zammar's answers back. […] Representatives of the (US) federal authorities liked this situation as it saved the US government from being held liable for any torture that the Syrians may have used on Zammar. "
On December 14, 2005 it was officially confirmed that investigators from the Federal Criminal Police Office had questioned Zammar in his Syrian prison. In March 2006, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the Federal Criminal Police Office had already transmitted the whereabouts of Zammar and his flight details to the American Federal Police FBI on November 26, 2001, thus making it possible to capture their own citizens.
The Zammar case was the subject of the BND investigation committee , which was supposed to clarify to what extent German authorities were involved in the arrests and kidnappings in 2001, or whether they accepted them with approval, e. B. by submitting information about Zammar's stay to the CIA. The first meeting of the committee of inquiry on October 11, 2007 was inconclusive, as the government representatives did not show up with the necessary investigation files that had been requested for three months.
Sentenced in Syria in 2007
Zammar was convicted in February 2007 of membership in the banned Muslim Brotherhood under Article 49/1980. The Supreme State Security Court in Damascus, a special tribunal based on the 1963 State of Emergency Law, first imposed the death penalty, but then commuted it to twelve years in prison. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood stated that Zammar was never a member.
Released in Syria in 2013
Zammar was apparently released by the Syrian government at the end of 2013 as part of a prisoner exchange. In return, the militia Ahrar al-Sham , a founding member of the Islamic Front , released some Syrian officers.
Membership in IS in Syria 2016
German security authorities claim to have recognized the father of six in two IS propaganda videos and conclude from this that Zammar has since joined IS.
According to the PYD , he was arrested by Kurdish fighters in Syria in mid-April 2018.
literature
- Syara Kareb, Andreas Lünser, Christoph Reuter, Fidelius Schmid: "In the grave of the living" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 2018, p. 82–86 ( online - November 17, 2018 ).
Web links
- Peter Finn: Hamburg's Cauldron of Terror - Washington Post , September 11, 2002
- Press release based on Spiegel report Amnesty International Germany, November 24, 2005
- Video case Zammar: video from 2001
- Uli Rauss and Oliver Schröm: Cooperation with a torture state: The Syria Connection - March 13, 2008
Individual evidence
- ↑ S. Buchen and Hans Leyendecker : Hamburg Islamist Zammar: Deported, Arrested, Exchanged , SZ Online, July 16, 2014.
- ↑ 9/11 Network: Jihadist Zammar wants to return to Germany , Spiegel Online, November 17, 2018.
- ^ A b German-Syrian Zammar in Damascus sentenced to twelve years in prison, FAZ, February 11, 2007
- ↑ Syria refuses German authorities contact with the imprisoned suspected terrorist Zammar Der Spiegel June 29, 2002
- ^ Zammar kidnapping: USA asked federal government early on for secrecy , Der Spiegel, March 4, 2006
- ↑ Jörn Boewe: Berlin hinders enlightenment young world, October 12, 2007
- ↑ Syrian Human Rights Committee: "Mohammed Haydar Zammar Sentenced Pursuant to Article 49/1980" ( Memento of October 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- ↑ Mohammed Haydar Zammar free again . Daily mirror. March 1, 2014. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
- ↑ Florian Flade: Hamburg Islamist kidnapped by the CIA appears at the IS in Syria . World. June 4, 2016. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
- ^ German-Syrians: Mohammed Zammar apparently arrested in Syria. In: Spiegel Online . April 19, 2018. Retrieved June 9, 2018 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zammar, Muhammad Haidar |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Zammar, Mohammed Haydar |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | suspected al-Qaeda recruiter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1961 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Aleppo , Syria |