US ‘pilgrim’ Travis Timmerman freed as Syria leaders search for abducted journo Austin Tice

Travis Timmerman, held in a Syrian prison for seven months, was found wandering barefoot in Damascus, raising hopes over the survival of kidnapped US journalist Austin Tice.

Travis Timmerman speaks with reporters in a house in Damascus after his release from prison. Picture: AFP.

An American “pilgrim” who has been held for months in a Syrian prison has been freed after rebels overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad, raising hopes over the survival of US journalist Austin Tice, who was kidnapped by Assad’s regime in 2012.

Syria’s new leadership said Thursday it was searching for Mr Tice after Travis Timmerman was “released and secured.”

Mr Timmerman was found wandering barefoot in the Al-Zyabiyeh neighbourhood of Damascus, where he told residents he had been held for seven months after entering the country on a “pilgrimage.”

“The municipality guard, Mousa Rifai, found him so we brought him to our house and fed him and he slept for about an hour,” local resident Ziyad Nedda said.

“He was held in the Palestine Branch, he wouldn’t stop saying it. ‘I was held in the Palestine Branch in Damascus’,” he said.

The “Palestine Branch”, also known as Branch 235, was a prison operated by the Syrian intelligence services under the Assad regime.

Travis Timmerman was found wandering barefoot in a Damascus suburb.

Austin Tice, 31-years-old, blindfolded with men believed to be his captors at an undisclosed location in Syria in 2012.

Mr Timmerman said he had crossed into Syria from Lebanon in June on a “religious pilgrimage” to Damascus. “I heard the word of God,” he explained.

According to US media reports, the 29-year-old was last seen in Budapest, Hungary, in early June.

In 2022, US President Joe Biden accused Syria of holding Mr Tice, a freelance photojournalist detained near Damascus a decade earlier, and demanded that the Assad government release him.

The transitional government, which took the helm after Assad’s ouster on Sunday, said: “The search for American citizen Austin Tice is ongoing”.

“We confirm our readiness to cooperate directly with the US administration to search for American citizens disappeared by the former Assad regime,” the transitional government’s department of political affairs added in a statement on Telegram.

In recent days, Syrian residents and armed men have broken into government prisons, freeing inmates, some of whom have spent decades behind bars.

Mr Tice was working for Agence France-Presse, McClatchy News, The Washington Post, CBS and other media outlets when he was detained at a checkpoint in Daraya, a suburb of Damascus, on August 14, 2012.

On Friday, the missing journalist’s mother Debra told reporters her son is believed to be alive and is being “treated well,” without providing further details.

The rebel forces, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), appointed an interim prime minister on Tuesday to lead Syria until March.

AFP