BRING HIM HOME
Moment US tourist jailed in Assad prison is found after 7 months & tells of being deafened by inmates harrowing screams
Watch 'dazed' American Travis speak to reporters in Syria below
THIS is the unbelievable moment an American tourist jailed in one of Assad's brutal prisons is found - and tells of the deafening harrowing screams from tortured fellow inmates.
Travis Timmerman, 29, from Missouri, revealed he had attempted to travel through the country on a Christian pilgrimage before he was seized by Assad's men.
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Travis entered Syria by foot from the eastern Lebanese town of Zahle seven months ago - and had been in one of Assad's hellhole prisons ever since.
The 29-year-old told Al Alabiya he heard sounds of torture on a daily basis in Assad's detention centres.
Travis was released from prison after seven months by two heroic armed men who broke his door down with a hammer on Monday - and he had no idea Assad's regime had been toppled.
The Missouri native told CBS: "My door was busted down, it woke me up.
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"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."
He was described as looking "dazed", wearing a dark grey hoodie with no shoes.
Travis explained that he left the prison with a large group and was trying to make his own way out of the country.
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He headed towards Jorgan before ending up in the Syrian town Al-Dhiyabiya.
The freed American said he dealt with "a few moments of fear" and still couldn't believe he was a free man.
He added: "I still haven't really thought about that.
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"I've been more worried about finding a place to sleep each night since then. So I've been working, really."
Travis described how it was "mostly young men" who he heard being tortured during his time in prison and that he "never heard a woman scream".
Despite fellow inmates being treated poorly, the American said he personally was treated well.
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."
Unbelievable footage released by Syrian rebels showed Travis asleep in a house in al-Dhiyabiya.
He could be seen laying on a mattress under a blanket in the clip.
Travis was initially confused by one rebel as being the American journalist Austin Tice who had been missing for the last 12 years after Assad's men kidnapped him while he reported on the Syrian Civil War.
Footage shows a rebel calling Travis the "American journalist" who they didn't know the name of.
The rebel goes on to say that he had been tortured in Assad's infamous Sednaya prison - but Travis later clarified that this wasn't true.
Travis had embarked on his pilgrimage to Syria via Lebanon in late May, but had been in Europe beforehand, he told NBC.
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Authorities in Missouri and Budapest, Hungary, put out a missing persons report for a man called Pete Timmerman earlier this year.
But Hungarian cops named the man as Travis Pete Timmerman.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol said that he had gone missing in Budapest.
The bulletin said the date of his last contact was June 2 of this year.
Budapest authorities launched a request for information on him, informing the public that he was last seen at a church and had since "left for an unknown location, with no sign of life".
Travis is one of the thousands of prisoners who have been released within the past few days after evil tyrant Assad was overthrown.
But many are still said to be hidden inside secret underground cells.
Rebels have discovered a chilling "Book of Death" with names of nearly 30,000 people executed in Assad's slaughterhouse jail.
And, as the atrocities of the infamous Sednaya prison continue to be unveiled, tortured bodies and piles of clothes were also discovered at the hellhole site.
Haunting images show massive piles of clothes and shoes hidden away in a secret compartment of the notorious Sednaya prison.
And horrific footage captures the moment rebels find piles of dead bodies in the dungeons of the hellhole site who had been tortured to death.
The bodies were taken to Al-Mujtahid Hospital as teams carried out an investigation into the secret areas of the prison.
RAPE, TORTURE AND DEATH
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Some held at the horrific prison of Sednaya say they were raped, and in some cases, forced to rape other inmates.
A regular form of punishment was some kind of torture and severe beatings from guards, it's claimed, which led to individuals suffering life-changing damage like disabilities or death.
Floors of cells were coated in blood and pus from tortured prisoners, according to a 2017 Amnesty report, with the bodies of dead prisoners collected like rubbish at 9am each morning by guards.
Detainees were also forced to follow horrific rules as they were forced as they were deprived the basic necessities of food, water and medicine.
When food would be delivered it would often be cruelly scattered across cell floors by guards with a mixture of blood and dirt.
A human iron press was even discovered that was allegedly used to crush prisoners to death in Sednaya - unveiled in videos shared by rebels as they liberated prisoners.
They also found dozens of red rope nooses used for mass hangings in an execution room.
ASSAD'S DENIAL
The overthrown dictator Assad previously denied killing thousands of detainees at Sednaya.
He also denied using a secret crematorium to dispose of their remains in 2017.
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Despite the denial, so-called "Caesar" files, which was a collection of over 55,000 photographs, was smuggled out of Syria in 2013 by a former military police photographer.
These images documented unspeakable torture and deaths of over 11,000 prisoners in Syrian government custody between March 2011 and August 2013.
What is Sednaya Prison?
By Annabel Bate, Foreign News Reporter
SEDNAYA Prison - otherwise known as the Human Slaughterhouse - was a military prison near Damascus, Syria.
Operated by the government of Syrian Arab Republic, the hellhole prison was used to hold thousands of inmates that were civilian detainees, anti-government rebels and political prisoners.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that an overwhelming 30,000 detainees were horrifically executed under the Assad regime in Sednaya.
Guards would use torture as a killing technique, as well as have mass executions.
Some held at the horrific prison of Sednaya say they were raped, and in some cases, forced to rape other inmates.
A regular form of punishment was some kind of torture and sever beatings from guards, it's claimed, which led to individuals suffering life-changing damage like disabilities or death.
Floors of cells were coated in blood and pus from tortured prisoners, according to a 2017 Amnesty report, with the bodies of dead prisoners collected like rubbish at 9am each morning by guards.
Detainees were also forced to follow horrific rules as they were forced as they were deprived the basic necessities of food, water and medicine.
When food would be delivered it would often be cruelly scattered across cell floors by guards with a mixture of blood and dirt.
Other disturbing accounts say the mass hangings occurred once or twice a week on a Monday and Wednesday - chillingly in the middle of the night.
The unbelievable practices, which human rights groups say amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, were authorised at the highest level of the Syrian government under Assad.
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