On Thursday, a scruffy bearded man who identified himself as Travis Timmerman, a missing Missouri resident, was found in Syria and said he was jailed after visiting Syria for “spiritual purposes.”
Timmerman, 29, said he had spent more than six months in a government prison when he was freed by rebel fighters armed with AK-47s on Monday, the day the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fell.
“I woke up because the door was broken,” Timmerman told CBS.
“I thought the war might have become more active in the end because I thought the guards were still there…Once we got out there was no resistance and no real fighting. There wasn’t.”
A video of Timmerman posted by Turkish news agency Anadolu on Thursday initially led to speculation that he was Austin Tice, the American journalist who disappeared in 2012 while covering the anti-Assad uprising in Damascus at the outbreak of Syria’s civil war. caused it.
Timmerman said he entered Syria without permission and was detained seven months ago when he crossed the border from Lebanon.
He had traveled to Lebanon from Europe for “spiritual purposes” and described himself to NBC News as a religious “pilgrim.”
His experience in one of Syria’s notorious prisons “wasn’t that bad,” he said.
“I was never beaten. My only regret was that I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I wanted to. I was only taken outside to go to the bathroom three times a day.” he told CBS News.
He was spotted by journalists on Thursday walking barefoot in the town of Diyabia, on the outskirts of the capital, on his way to Jordan.
Timmerman told CBS he had a chance to speak with his family on the phone three weeks before he was in prison.
Finally freed, he said it was now more difficult to find a place to sleep on the streets at night, but people were willing to help him.
“I’m feeling good. I’m fed, I’m hydrated, so I’m doing well,” Timmerman told CBS.
Earlier this year, authorities in Missouri and Budapest, Hungary filed a missing person report for a man named Pete Timmerman, who Hungarian authorities identified as “Travis” Pete Timmerman, NBC reported.
Timmerman went missing in Budapest on May 28, according to a Missouri State Highway Patrol alert.
Budapest police said the man was last seen at a church and “left for an unknown location.”
CBS reported that U.S. officials are aware that Timmerman has been found and are working to provide assistance.
