Austin Tice, an American freelance journalist who vanished in Syria in 2012, was imprisoned by the regime of since-ousted dictator Bashar Assad, the BBC reported Monday, citing intelligence reports.
The intelligence files are the first evidence of the regime's detention of Tice since efforts to find him began after Assad's ouster in December. The files labeled "Austin Tice" include communications from different branches of Syrian intelligence, and their authenticity was verified by the BBC and law enforcement.
Tice disappeared near Damascus in August 2012, just days after his 31st birthday. According to the BBC, seven weeks after his disappearance, a video was posted online showing Tice blindfolded with his hands bound, being forced to recite an Islamic declaration of faith by a group of armed men.
No government or group has claimed responsibility for Tice's disappearance.
Tice, a Marine Corps veteran from Houston who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was believed to have been arrested near the Damascus suburb of Darayya, Syria, and held by members of a paramilitary force who were loyal to Assad called the National Defense Forces, the BBC reported.
A Syrian official confirmed to the BBC that Tice was there until at least February 2013.
A former member of the NDF with intimate knowledge of Tice's detention told the BBC "that Austin's value was understood" and that he was a "card" that could be played in diplomatic negotiations with the U.S.
Tice briefly escaped by squeezing through a window in his cell, but he was recaptured, the BBC reported. A Syrian government intelligence officer also interrogated him at least twice.
When Assad was ousted, then-President Joe Biden said he believed Tice was still alive. Two days before Assad's ouster, his mother, Debra Tice, said that a "significant source" had confirmed that her son was alive and being "treated well," according to the BBC. But when prisons were emptied after the fall of the government, there was no sign of Tice, and his whereabouts remain unknown.
Tice's remains were reportedly found in a cemetery in northern Syria, sources told Sky News Arabia on May 11, but that report was never confirmed by Tice's family or the Trump administration.
Debra Tice told The Washington Post in early May that the U.S. government knew where her son was being held for more than a decade, suggesting more could have been done to recover him. She said her conclusion — including her belief that her son's location was known up to when Assad was overthrown — was based on intelligence records the Trump administration recently permitted her to access.
She said the effort to find her son is more difficult because she believed he had been moved around the time of the Assad regime's collapse. She had direct talks with the leader of Syria's de facto government, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Damascus in January, the Post reported.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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