British born aid worker, Tauqir Sharif, has been’ charged’ with funding projects that ‘incite division’. He had last month been ‘arrested’ by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group in Syria. The BBC reports that the group had on Tuesday announced that Sharif had been released on bail.

Sharif had been stripped of his citizenship in 2017, after having been accused of links to a group allegedly aligned with al-Qaeda. According to the BBC he denied the allegation but admitted to having fought in Syria and having been armed with an AK47 rifle.

Sharif, who is also known as Tox, is the founder of the Unity Project, an umbrella organisation for humanitarian aid projects in Syria. A social media campaign calling for his release was launched by his family, colleagues, and supporters in Syria and abroad.

HTS claims Mr Sharif had organised “the transfer of funds to support some projects that incite division” in opposition-held territories.

Following his ‘bail’, HTS’s “office of media affairs” in a statement said, “The court informed him that the date of his hearing with the judiciary was after 15 days… and that during his release he could prepare his defence.”

Umm Muhammed Umar