The mom of journalist Austin Tice – who was detained in Syria in 2012 – advised NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that seeing one other lacking American, Travis Timmerman, present in Damascus lately felt “virtually like having a rehearsal … of what it’s going to actually really feel like when it’s Austin strolling free”.
Preliminary studies on Wednesday speculated that the American discovered is perhaps Austin Tice – however Debra Tice mentioned she knew instantly it wasn’t her son.
“My oldest daughter got here into my room at 4.25, and mentioned: ‘Mother, you recognize, we now have this video. You’ll want to have a look at it. We don’t assume it’s Austin, however lots of people assume it’s Austin, so we would like you to look and see if it’s Austin,’” Debra Tice advised NBC’s Kristen Welker.
She added: “I took a look and I mentioned: ‘No, that’s not Austin.’”
That day, the Tice household acquired a flood of congratulatory messages from individuals who thought Timmerman was Austin. When she mirrored on the information, Debra Tice mentioned: “It’s virtually like having a rehearsal, you recognize? Simply an inkling of what it’s going to actually really feel like when it’s Austin strolling free.”
Austin Tice, a former US Marine and freelance journalist from Houston, was kidnapped in August 2012 whereas overlaying Syria’s civil warfare. Shortly after he disappeared, the US state division mentioned that he was being held by the Syrian authorities. Then president Bashar al-Assad denied it for years.
For the reason that current collapse of Assad’s regime, hundreds of prisoners have been freed, however Austin Tice’s whereabouts stay unknown. In the previous couple of weeks, a former prisoner advised NBC Information he had been detained in a cell throughout from Tice and noticed him alive as lately as July 2022.
In gentle of Assad’s ousting, the White Home declared the restoration of Austin Tice a “prime precedence”. Nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan advised Good Morning America on Monday that US officers are working with Turkish intermediaries and native contacts in Syria.
“This can be a prime precedence for us – to search out Austin Tice, to find the jail the place he could also be held, get him out, get him residence safely to his household,” Sullivan mentioned.
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In accordance with information by the Committee to Shield Journalists, Tice is considered one of no less than 5 journalists being held in Syria on undisclosed fees – and the one American.
It’s nonetheless unclear if Tice is alive.
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