US ‘pilgrim’ freed from Syrian prison by hammer-wielding rebels found wandering near Damascus
12 December 2024, 15:55
An American “pilgrim” who spent months in a Syrian prison has been found wandering the streets after he was freed by rebels who helped overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime.
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Travis Timmerman, who arrived in Syria on foot, was discovered walking through the capital city Damascus.
The 29-year-old Missouri native said he arrived in the country via the eastern Lebanese town of Zahle on a Christian pilgrimage when he was taken captive by Assad’s forces.
Mr Timmerman said he was freed by two men armed with a hammer who broke open his prison door.
He told reporters: “My door was busted down, it woke me up.“
"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.”
Read more: Syrian rebels burn coffin of Assad's father in brutal dictator's home town
Mr Timmermansaid he left the prison as part of a group heading towards Jordan but ended up in the Syrian town of Al-Dhiyabiya.
While many people in Assad’s prisons have been subjected to brutal treatment, including torture, the American says he suffer the same experience.
He told Al Arabiya: “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.”
It was “mostly young men' who he heard being tortured while imprisoned, he said, adding that he 'never heard a woman scream' during his stint in Syrian prison.
Mr Timmerman is just on of thousands of prisoners who have been released since Assad fled the country over the weekend, marking the end of his family’s 50-year rule over the nation.
Suhaib Jaber, a Syrian journalist who was captured and tortured by Assad’s regime, shared his experience of captivity.
He told Lewis Goodall on Sunday: "They hung us from the roof of the room and used several methods of torturing. A lot of children burned in the prison."
Lewis asked Jaber what his hopes and fears are now that the regime is gone.
Jaber said: "It’s not only my hope but all the Syrian people which is at first persecuting the war criminals, Bashar Al-Assad and let him go to justice,"Let him be punished for his crimes.""Also all the war criminals not only Bashar, some of them are still in Syria, some of them fled, the international community should find these war criminals and punish them.”
