Missouri man Travis Timmerman, missing since June, freed from Syrian prison

URBANA, Mo. (KOLR) — A Missouri man found in Syria said early Friday he was freed following the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad after seven months in prison.

According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP), Pete Travis Timmerman (also identified as Travis Timmerman) was reported missing from Budapest, Hungary in June. Hungarian authorities issued a missing person report for Timmerman, 29, in August.

Timmerman lived near Urbana, Missouri, where his mother and stepfather still reside, after graduating from Missouri State University (MSU). He had been on a Christian pilgrimage when he was detained in Syria, according to the Associated Press (AP).

He appears to have been among thousands of people released from prison after rebels reached Damascus, overthrowing Assad, the AP reports.

The AP says when video showed up online Thursday, Timmerman was initially mistaken by some as American journalist Austin Tice, who has been missing from Syria for 12 years.

The video showed Timmerman lying on a mattress under a blanket in what appeared to be a private house, the AP said. Timmerman later gave an interview with the Al-Arabiya TV network, saying he had been treated well in detention.

He said he was freed by “the liberators who came into the prison and knocked the door down (of his cell) with a hammer.”

The political affairs office of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that led the lightning offensive to topple Assad’s government, said the group had secured his release.

“We affirm our readiness to cooperate directly with the U.S. administration to complete the search for American citizens disappeared by the former Assad regime,” the group said, adding that a search was underway for Austin Tice, an American journalist who went missing in Syria 12 years ago. An official with the group later said it was arranging for Timmerman to leave Syria, but gave no details.

He was detained after he crossed into Syria from a mountain along the eastern Lebanese town of Zahle in June. He was questioned for three and half hours by interrogators who thought he must be a spy. In a brief second interview, they searched his mobile phone, and in the last interview, he started discussing his dreams with his captors.

He said later in his detention, he could hear explosions — at a time when Israel was intensifying its strikes in Syria. Israel’s war with the Hezbollah militant group had intensified in September, before a ceasefire was reached last month.

“I heard some explosives that shook the building,” he said.

In his prison cell, Timmerman said he had a mattress, a plastic drinking container and two others for waste. He had three bathroom breaks and had exercise breaks in the first half of his stay.

Timmerman said he was released Monday morning alongside a young Syrian man and 70 female prisoners, some of whom had their children with them.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.