Sudaki Al-Maqt, a Syrian prisoner in Israel, refused an offer by the Russian Military Attache to be freed to Damascus, the Palestinian Prisoners Club reported on Thursday, according to Channel 13.
Israel released two Syrian prisoners to Syria as a goodwill gesture after the body of IDF soldier Zachary Baumel was returned to Israel in April.
Al-Maqt refused the offer because he claimed that it's his right to be freed to the Golan Heights. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison and released in 2012, but arrested again in 2015 for filming the transfer of wounded people into Israel from Syria and imprisoned for 11 more years. Al-Maqt is from the northern Druze town of Majdal Shams.
In recent years, Russia and Israel have worked together to help find the remains of Israeli soldiers in Syria. Baumel went missing in action in June 1982.