The man identified himself as Travis Timmerman, 29, originally from Missouri, and had been jailed at the infamous Saydnaya prison for 7 months after being captured by then-president Bashar al-Assad's forces while trying to enter Syria from Lebanon on foot without permission.
He denied being missing American journalist Austin Tice when asked in an interview with Al Arabiya. Tice had been imprisoned in Syria for 12 years after he was kidnapped while reporting on the Syrian Civil War, Daily Mail reports.
When asked why he entered Syria, Timmerman said "I came on a religious pilgrimage, I'm a Christian." He also stated he was treated "well" at the prison, refuting claims from rebel soldiers that he was tortured. "I was fed, I was watered. The one difficulty was that I couldn't go to the bathroom when I wanted. I was only let out three times a day to go to the bathroom. Other than that, I was not beaten. The guards treated me decently," he said. Still, he reported hearing "young men" being tortured during his 7 months there.
In another interview with CBS News, Timmerman recounted the moments he was broken out of prison by 2 armed men with AK-47s on Monday. "My door was busted down, it woke me up," Timmerman said. "I thought the guards were still there, so I thought the warfare could have been more active than it ended up being… Once we got out, there was no resistance, there was no real fighting."
"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, adding that he had a "few moments of fear" leaving the prison after he was freed and that he still has not processed his freedom.
"I still haven't really thought about that. I've been more worried about finding a place to sleep each night since then," he said. "So I've been working, really."
Timmerman had been found outside of Damascus after rebel forces toppled Assad's regime and broke prisoners free from Saydnaya. He had been walking with a large group from the prison towards Jordan amid the chaos.
According to the Daily Mail, "Assad was notorious for overseeing torture in Syrian prisons. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that nearly 60,000 people were tortured and killed in his prisons. "
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