Missing US man found in Syria says he was kept in prison after entering country as a pilgrim
CNN
By Clarissa Ward, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Catherine Nicholls, CNN
(CNN) — A missing US man has been found in Syria, where he says he was kept in prison for months after entering the country as a pilgrim.
Travis Timmerman spoke to several outlets Thursday, after locals saw him walking barefoot in the streets of southern Damascus.
Thousands of people have been released from prisons across Syria this week, after rebels toppled the country’s former president Bashar al-Assad.
Speaking to CBS News, Timmerman said he had been detained in a Syrian prison for several months after entering the country without permission, having crossed its border with Lebanon.
He had decided to travel to Syria for “spiritual purposes,” he told the network.
He said that his cell door was broken down on Monday by two men armed with AK-47s, CBS News reported, and left the prison with a large group to try and reach Jordan.
Timmerman’s time being held in the Syrian prison “wasn’t too bad,” he said, according to CBS News.
“I was never beaten. The only really bad part was that I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I wanted to. I was only let out three times a day to go to the bathroom,” he said.
Timmerman made similar comments to NBC and the Al-Arabiya TV network Thursday.
Timmerman’s parents said they were relieved he was safe after a difficult seven months.
“Tears, started bawling, it was so emotional,” Timmerman’s stepfather Richard Gardiner told CNN affiliate KYTV. “I’m thinking the worst, after seven months you just think he’s gone.”
Gardiner said he called Timmerman’s mother, Stacey Timmerman, to break the news. “I called her up and said, ‘It’s him, and he’s alive!’ So we both cried on the phone,” Gardiner said.
An alert that Timmerman had gone missing was posted by Hungarian police in August, though a Facebook post written by a family friend said that he had been missing since June. He was last seen in Budapest in late May, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said in a public awareness bulletin.
Timmerman worked for the law firm Goldberg Law Group based in Chicago, Illinois, for around a year between 2020 and 2021, the firm’s Managing Partner Michael Goldberg told CNN on Thursday.
He was a “super nice guy” who had moved to Chicago for the job, Goldberg said, also describing him as “pretty smart.”
When Timmerman was found, those on the ground were also looking for the missing US journalist Austin Tice, who has been held in Syria since 2012. Though he not yet been found, the interim Syrian government said in a statement on Thursday that efforts to locate Tice are ongoing.
The Syrian government also confirmed Timmerman’s release.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that the US is working to bring “an American citizen who was found just today” back to the States.
“I can’t give you any details on exactly what’s going to happen, except to say that we’re working to bring him home, to bring him out of Syria and to bring him home,” Blinken said at a news conference in Jordan.
CNN has approached Timmerman’s family and friends for comment.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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CNN’s Jennifer Hansler and Artemis Moshtaghian contributed to this report.
