A US man, detained for months in a Syrian jail after coming into the nation on foot, has described being freed by hammer-wielding males as rebels overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The person – who later recognized himself as Travis Timmerman to the BBC’s US information companion CBS – was discovered by residents close to the capital Damascus.
Footage posted on social media confirmed him mendacity on a settee as residents spoke to native reporters.
Mr Timmerman mentioned he had been arrested upon coming into the nation seven months in the past.
He had gone lacking within the Hungarian capital Budapest in Might, in line with the Missouri State Freeway Patrol.
On Monday, a day after rebels took management of Damascus and toppled Assad, Mr Timmerman mentioned two males armed with a hammer broke his jail door down.
It was “busted down, it woke me up”, he mentioned.
“I believed the guards have been nonetheless there, so I believed the warfare may have been extra lively than it ended up being… As soon as we obtained out, there was no resistance, there was no actual combating.”
The 30-year-old mentioned he left jail with a big group of individuals and had been trying to make his technique to Jordan.
He mentioned he “had just a few moments of concern” when he left the jail, including that he had since been extra anxious about discovering someplace to sleep.
Nonetheless native folks had been receptive to his requests for meals and help, he informed reporters.
“They have been coming to me, principally,” Mr Timmerman mentioned
1000’s of prisoners have been launched because the fall of Assad over the weekend.
Footage has proven males, girl and in some circumstances kids rising from overcrowded windowless cells, typically disorientated and unaware of occasions that had taken place exterior.
The Assad regime was infamous for its extraordinarily harsh prisons, with the UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimating that nearly 60,000 folks have been tortured and killed within the prisons run by the deposed president.
Nonetheless, Mr Timmerman seems to have been comparatively well-treated, telling CBS: “I am feeling nicely. I have been fed and I have been watered, so I am feeling nicely.”
He added that he had had the usage of a cell phone throughout his detention and had spoken to his household three weeks in the past.
The victorious insurgent forces have mentioned they plan to shut Assad’s prisons and hunt these concerned within the killing or torture of detainees.
“We’ll pursue them in Syria, and we ask international locations at hand over those that fled so we will obtain justice,” mentioned insurgent chief Ahmed al-Sharaa, also referred to as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
