By Nick Ingram and Sarah El Deeb, Associated Press
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP)—An American who vanished seven months ago into the infamous prison system of former Syrian President Bashar Assad announced early Friday that the liberators, who came in Damascus a day after the longstanding dictator abandoned the capital, had freed him.
Speaking to The Associated Press from a hotel room in Damascus, where he had arrived late Thursday, Travis Timmerman described his release as a godsend. After rebels overthrew Assad and put an end to his family’s 54-year rule in Syria this week, he was one of thousands of individuals freed from the country’s vast military prisons.
Timmerman, 29, said he was not mistreated in Palestine Branch, an infamous detention center run by Syrian intelligence, since he had traveled to Syria on a Christian pilgrimage. He claimed that he was let free by the liberators who entered the prison and used a hammer to smash down the door of his cell.
The Islamist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which spearheaded the lightning onslaught to overthrow Assad’s regime, announced that it had obtained his release through its political affairs office.
In addition to stating that a search was in progress for American journalist Austin Tice, who vanished in Syria twelve years ago, the group reaffirmed its willingness to work directly with the U.S. administration to finish the hunt for American citizens who were abducted by the former Assad dictatorship. Later, a group spokesman stated that it was making arrangements for Timmerman to depart Syria, but provided no specifics.
According to Timmerman, he was freed Monday morning together with 70 female inmates, some of whom had children with them, and a young Syrian man.
He claimed he was unaware of any other Americans detained in the facility and that he had been housed apart from Syrian and other Arab inmates.
I spent seven months there. Timmerman mentioned that women were present above me. He could hear some of the men being frequently thrashed, and he could hear the women singing and instructing their kids. He said that I had never been beaten.
In June, he entered Syria from a mountain near Zahle, a town in eastern Lebanon, and was arrested. Interrogators believed he was a spy and questioned him for three and a half hours. They searched his cell phone during a brief second interrogation, and he began talking to his captors about his dreams during the final session.
He claimed that because he could hear the daily beatings next door, they implied that they would use violence against him. However, three weeks ago, his kidnappers allowed him to call his family via his cell phone. Timmerman only informed his family that he was okay at the time, not that he was in Damascus.
Later in his incarceration, he claimed to have heard explosions during a period when Israel was stepping up its attacks in Syria. Before a ceasefire was agreed upon last month, Israel’s conflict with the militant organization Hezbollah had escalated in September.
Timmerman hails from Urbana, Missouri, which is located in the southwest of the state, roughly 50 miles north of Springfield. In 2017, he graduated from Missouri State University with a degree in finance.
In her Urbana, Missouri, home on Thursday, December 12, 2024, Stacey Collins Gardiner holds a photo of her son, Travis Timmerman. After traveling from Lebanon into Syria on a Christian pilgrimage, Timmerman, an American national, was detained for months before being discovered outside of Damascus, Syria. (Photo by Nick Ingram/AP)
Stacey Gardiner, Timmerman’s mother, told the AP that she hadn’t spoken to her son as of Thursday night. She said he informed her that he was going to write about other churches in Prague and Budapest, Hungary. She claimed that the last time she heard from him was in May, when he promised to call her back when he had internet access again because he was heading somewhere without it. He then stopped returning her calls and texts, leaving her unsure of his whereabouts.
Gardiner stated, “I couldn’t help him, and that broke my heart more and more every day.” All I want is for my child to return home.
He spent two nights in Damascus after being released from prison, one at a new friend’s house and the other at an abandoned apartment in the old town.
When a Syrian family discovered him barefoot on a major road in the Damascus countryside early on Thursday, he had already begun to walk toward Jordan.
Some initially thought he was Tice.
After learning of Timmerman’s whereabouts, Mouaz Mostafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nonprofit organization with headquarters in the United States, who was in Damascus, got in touch with him and informed American authorities regarding him.
According to Moustafa, Timmerman is recuperating until the rebels can determine how to turn him over to American officials.
Although he admitted on Sunday that we do not have concrete proof of Tice’s condition, President Joe Biden stated that his government thought he was still alive and was dedicated to getting him home.For years, U.S. intelligence officials have been frustrated by the case.
According to Blinken, the United States has made this a top priority.
As the Syrian civil war grew more intense in August 2012, Tice, whose work has been featured in publications like as The Washington Post and McClatchy, vanished at a checkpoint in a disputed region west of Damascus.
Tice was shown being restrained and blindfolded by armed men in a video that was made public weeks after he vanished. Since then, he has not been heard from. The administration of Assad had denied that he was being held captive.
Note: Every piece of content is rigorously reviewed by our team of experienced writers and editors to ensure its accuracy. Our writers use credible sources and adhere to strict fact-checking protocols to verify all claims and data before publication. If an error is identified, we promptly correct it and strive for transparency in all updates, feel free to reach out to us via email. We appreciate your trust and support!