US man found near Damascus after months in Syrian prison

A US man, detained for months in a Syrian jail after getting into the nation on foot, has described being freed by hammer-wielding males as rebels overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

The person – who later recognized himself as Travis Timmerman to the BBC’s US information associate CBS – was discovered by residents close to the capital Damascus.

It comes as rebels say they intend to shut Assad’s notoriously harsh prisons and track down those involved in torturing or killing detainees.

“We’ll pursue them in Syria, and we ask international locations at hand over those that fled so we will obtain justice,” stated insurgent chief Ahmed al-Sharaa, often known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

Footage posted on social media confirmed Mr Timmerman mendacity on a settee as residents spoke to native reporters.

He stated he had been arrested upon getting into the nation seven months in the past.

The American was reported as lacking in Might, having final been seen within the Hungarian capital Budapest, in line with the Missouri State Freeway Patrol and the Hungarian authorities.

On Monday, a day after rebels took management of Damascus and toppled Assad, Mr Timmerman stated two males armed with a hammer broke open his jail door.

It was “busted down, it woke me up”, he stated.

“I believed the guards had been nonetheless there, so I believed the warfare may have been extra lively than it ended up being… As soon as we acquired out, there was no resistance, there was no actual combating.”

The 30-year-old stated he left jail with a big group of individuals and had been making an attempt to make his solution to Jordan.

He stated he “had a couple of moments of concern” when he left the jail, including that he had since been extra apprehensive about discovering someplace to sleep.

Nevertheless native folks had been receptive to his requests for meals and help, he informed reporters.

“They had been coming to me, principally,” Mr Timmerman stated.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated on Thursday that Washington was “working to deliver [Mr Timmerman] dwelling”.

Blinken, talking throughout a go to to Jordan, added that he couldn’t give any particulars about “precisely what is going on to occur”.

1000’s of prisoners have been launched because the fall of Assad over the weekend.

Footage has proven males, ladies and in some circumstances kids rising from overcrowded windowless cells, typically disorientated and unaware of occasions that had taken place exterior.

Nevertheless, Mr Timmerman seems to have been comparatively well-treated, telling CBS: “I am feeling nicely. I have been fed and I have been watered, so I am feeling nicely.”

He added that he had had the usage of a cell phone throughout his detention and had spoken to his household three weeks in the past.

Talking to fellow US outlet NBC, Mr Timmerman stated he had crossed the mountains between Lebanon and Syria on a “pilgrimage” and had “been studying the scripture rather a lot”.

He declined the chance to be put in contact with American officers.

On Tuesday, State Division spokesperson Matthew Miller stated the US had requested Syria’s fundamental insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to assist find and free US journalist Austin Tice.

A contract journalist, Mr Tice is assumed to have been taken captive near Damascus on 14 August 2012 whereas he was overlaying the nation’s civil battle.

He was final seen in a video, blindfolded and in obvious misery – posted on-line weeks after his seize. The US believes he was being held by the Assad regime.

President Joe Biden has said the US believes Mr Tice is alive, however they have to pinpoint his location.

The Assad regime was infamous for its extraordinarily harsh prisons, the place the UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates nearly 60,000 folks had been tortured and killed.

Throughout Syria this week, households determined to seek out family members have been streaming into these darkish jail websites.

The Syrian Civil Defence Organisation, often known as the White Helmets, has been serving to the search – together with within the notorious Saydnaya jail complicated, described by human rights groups as the “human slaughterhouse”.

“We’re on the lookout for secret prisons in a number of areas of Damascus,” Raed Saleh, director of The White Helmets informed the BBC.

“We will not say an excessive amount of about this, however we’re wanting.”

The White Helmets, identified for pulling survivors from the rubble throughout Syria’s devastating civil battle, say they helped get better 1000’s of detainees from the prisons.

However many households are nonetheless looking out in useless.

“What came about in Saydnaya may be very painful for the households who had been ready for his or her family members,” Saleh acknowledged.

“Our lack of ability to achieve anybody else in Saydnaya after the preliminary launch of prisoners signifies that these individuals who had been there are both useless or in one other place.

“We’ve got at the very least two groups on the lookout for prisoners.

“One workforce with police sniffer canine is on the lookout for survivors. One other workforce is specialised in lock breaking and getting into cells.”