American ‘who crossed into Syria on foot’ freed after seven months in detention

An American who turned up in Syria on Thursday said he was detained after crossing into the country on foot seven months ago on a Christian pilgrimage.

Travis Timmerman appears to have been among thousands of people released from the country’s notorious prisons after rebels reached Damascus over the weekend, overthrowing President Bashar Assad and ending his family’s 54-year rule.

As video emerged online of Mr Timmerman on Thursday, he was initially mistaken by some for Austin Tice, an American journalist who went missing in Syria 12 years ago.

In the video, Mr Timmerman could be seen lying on a mattress under a blanket in what appeared to be a private house. A group of men in the video said that he was being treated well and would be safely returned home.

Later, a Syrian family told the Associated Press they found Mr Timmerman barefoot on a main road in the countryside of Damascus early on Thursday. He appeared cold and hungry so they brought him back to their home.

“I… fed him and called a doctor,” said Mosaed al-Rifai, a 68-year-old waste collector, adding that Mr Timmerman appeared disoriented.

Mr al-Rifai said it was hard to communicate because of the language barrier but it seemed Mr Timmerman had been held by an internal security agency. A few hours after Mr al-Rifai discovered him, the rebel group that now controls Syria’s capital arrived at the family’s house to pick him up, he said.

Earlier this year, a Missouri State Highway Patrol bulletin identified him as “Pete Travis Timmerman”, 29, and said he had gone missing in Hungary in early June. In late August, Hungarian police put out a missing persons announcement for Travis Pete Timmerman, saying he was last seen at a church in Hungary’s capital, Budapest.

Authorities in Missouri and Hungary had shared photos of a young man who strongly resembles the one shown in footage online from Syria. In interviews with international news outlets on Thursday, the man identified himself as Travis Timmerman.

Missouri court records indicate Mr Timmerman is from Urbana, Missouri, about 50 miles north of Springfield in the south-western part of the state. A graduation list from Missouri State University shows he earned his bachelor’s degree in finance in the spring of 2017.

Mr Timmerman’s mother, Stacey Collins Gardiner, told National Public Radio that he returned home to Urbana after working in Chicago for a couple of years. He then left for Budapest with the goal of writing about his Christian faith and helping people, she said.

Mr Timmerman had warned her, she added, that his travels might make communication difficult. After losing contact with him during his stay in Hungary, Ms Gardiner later learned that her son had gone to Lebanon.

On Thursday, she heard the news he was found through the media.

“I will hug him… And then I probably won’t let him go,” she said, laughing. “I’ll say, well, thank God you’re still alive. And I’m so happy. Our prayers came true.”

US officials said they were working to confirm Mr Timmerman’s identity and provide the support.

From Aqaba, Jordan, US secretary of state Antony Blinken told reporters that the White House was “working to bring him home, to bring him out of Syria” but declined further comment for privacy reasons.

Mr Timmerman later spoke with the Al-Arabiya TV network, saying he had illegally crossed into Syria on foot from the eastern Lebanese town of Zahle seven months ago before being detained and held in a cell alone.

He said that he was treated well in detention, but could hear other young men being tortured.

“It was OK. I was fed. I was watered. The one difficulty was that I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I wanted to,” he said.

He said he was only allowed to go three times a day.

“I was not beaten and the guards treated me decently,” he added.

Washington’s top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, travelled to Lebanon earlier this week in hopes of collecting information on the whereabouts of Mr Tice.

President Joe Biden has said his administration believed Mr Tice was alive and was committed to bringing him home, though he also acknowledged on Sunday that “we have no direct evidence” of his status. The case has frustrated US intelligence officials for years.

On Thursday, Mr Blinken emphasised the administration’s work on Mr Tice’s case.

“Every single day we are working to find him and to bring him home” Mr Blinken said. “This is a priority for the United States.”

Mr Tice, who has had his work published by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and others, disappeared at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus in August 2012 as the Syrian civil war intensified.