- This story is developing, more to follow
An American ‘pilgrim’ who has been found in Syria after being jailed by Assad’s henchmen for seven months has described the torture he overheard while captive.
The man, identified as Missouri native Travis Timmerman, revealed he had been travelling through the country on a pilgrimage when he was kidnapped by Assad’s forces.
In a video interview with Al Arabiya, he said he heard torture on a ‘daily’ basis.
‘It was mostly young men’, he said, adding that he ‘never heard a woman scream’ while he was in the prison.
He said that despite this, he was personally treated well.
‘I was fed, Iwas watered. The one difficulty was that I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I wanted. I was only let out three times a day to go to the bathroom. Other than that, I was not beaten. The guards treated me decently.’
He told CBS News that he was released from prison after seven months by two armed men who broke down his prison door with a hammer on Monday.
‘My door was busted down, it woke me up,’ Timmerman said. ‘I thought the guards were still there, so I thought the warfare could have been more active than it ended up being… Once we got out, there was no resistance, there was no real fighting.’
Travis Pete Timmerman, a U.S. citizen who went missing in Syria, speaks to press after being released from the Sednaya Prison after the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus, Syria on December 12, 2024
US citizen Travis Pete Timmerman, who went missing in Syria speaks during an exclusive interview in Damascus, Syria on December 12, 2024
He said he had been making his way out of the prison he was being kept in following Assad’s fall last week.
Timmerman said he left the prison with a large group, and was heading towards Jordan before he ended up in the Syrian town of Al-Dhiyabiya.
He said he ‘had a few moments of fear’, and still hadn’t processed the fact that he was now a free man.
He told CBS: ‘I still haven’t really thought about that. I’ve been more worried about finding a place to sleep each night since then. So I’ve been working, really.’
A video released by Syrian rebels showed Timmerman sleeping in a house in the town.
An identified rebel appeared to confuse him with American journalist Austin Tice, who has been missing for the last 12 years after Assad’s forced kidnapped him while he was reporting on the Syrian Civil War.
More to follow.
