The terrorist accused of helping to recruit Mohammed Atta and other hijackers for the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks while in Hamburg, Germany, was freed from a Syrian prison in 2013, a German news outlet reported.
Mohammed Haydar Zammar’s release was secured by the Syrian rebel group Ahrar al-Sham, according to a translation of Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung by Al Monitor.
The terrorist, a German citizen since 1982, might even be able to return to the country to live with his family. A spokesman for Germany’s public prosecutor’s office said that the statute of limitations on the terrorism charges has run out, Al Monitor reported.
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The prisoner, who was serving a 12-year sentence under the Assad regime, has reportedly been living in Aleppo since his release.
Before Zammar was captured by the CIA after the 9/11 attacks in Morocco and rendered to Syria, he was under constant surveillance by German intelligence. He is said to have been personally invited by Osama bin Laden to a terrorist training camp in 1996, and was the organizer for a travel service that shuttled terrorists to the region before the Sept. 11 attack on the United States, Al Monitor reported.
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