American Travis Timmerman found in Syria after being imprisoned for months
Travis Timmerman, an American from Missouri who was imprisoned in Syria, told NBC News he had been on a pilgrimage to Damascus. Video led some to thing he was Austin Tice.
DAMASCUS, Syria — A Missouri man found in Syria told NBC News on Thursday he spent months in a Syrian prison after crossing into the country on a "pilgrimage" to Damascus. It was not widely known that the man, who identified himself as Travis Timmerman and went missing in Hungary in May, was in Syria.
His discovery came as a shock to locals and journalists as thousands of detainees emerged from jails after the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad over the weekend.
Timmerman, who initially identified himself only as “Travis,” was first seen in a video that emerged overnight that led some to misidentify him as missing American journalist Austin Tice, 43.
Surrounded by reporters while leaning against walls with flaking paint, Timmerman, 29, said he was stopped by Syrian officials earlier this year after crossing into the country on foot.
"I was on a pilgrimage to Damascus," he told NBC News in a building on the outskirts of the capital. He said he had spent three days living in a mountain area around the border between Lebanon and Syria "without food and water" before he was spotted by a border guard and detained.
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