An American released in Syria on Thursday said he was on a… Christian pilgrimage when he entered the country on foot seven months ago and was detained by Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Travis Timmerman was first seen in a video that emerged online Thursday after rebels captured the capital Damascus and overthrew Assad last weekend.
In the video, a bearded Carpenter lay on a mattress under a blanket in what appeared to be a residential home. A group of men in the video said he was being treated well and would be returned home safely, The Associated Press reported.
Some who watched the video initially believed Timmerman was Austin Tice, an American journalist and Navy veteran who disappeared in Syria twelve years ago. Tice remains missing as of Thursday morning, although U.S. officials have said they believe he is still alive.
ISRAEL’S UN AMBASSADOR ARMS NATION ‘NOT GETTING INVOLVED’ IN SYRIAN REGIME CHANGE
Carpenter later told the Al-Arabiya TV network During an interview, he said he was arrested after illegally crossing Syria on foot from the eastern Lebanese town of Zahle seven months ago.
He said the guards treated him well during detention, but that they could hear others, whom he believed were young men, being tortured daily.
“It was okay. I was fed. I was given water. The only problem was I couldn’t go to the toilet when I wanted to,” he said, noting that the guards only let him out three times a day .
Thousands of people were released from Saydnaya military prison, just north of Damascus, Syria, after rebels overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s regime on Sunday. The infamous prison is known as the ‘human slaughterhouse’. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
“I was not beaten and the guards treated me decently,” he added.
U.S. officials did not immediately comment on Timmerman.
HERE’S WHO IS FIGHTING FOR POWER IN SYRIA AFTER THE FALL OF BASHAR AL-ASSAD
Meanwhile, the Biden administration sent the U.S. government’s top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, to Lebanon earlier this week in hopes of gathering information on Tice’s whereabouts.
The State Department’s Reward for Justice program is offering $10 million for information on locating Austin Tice. (The State Department’s Reward for Justice)
Tijs was arrested in Damascus in August 2012 while covering the uprising against the Assad regime, which marked the early stages of the Syrian civil war.
CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Tice was last seen in a video released weeks after his disappearance, showing him blindfolded and held down by armed men, saying, “Oh, Jesus.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
