Ex-Syrian commander claims missing US journalist Austin Tice was executed

The man accused of being responsible for the outfit of the American journalist who disappeared Austin Tice said that the Syrian president ousted Bashar al-Assad had ordered his execution, told the BBC.

Major-General Bassam Al Hassan is a former commander of the Republican guards who was part of President Assad’s inner circle.

He was also the chief of staff of the National Defense Forces (NDF), the paramilitary group that a BBC discovery survey was responsible For having held Mr. Tice after his abduction in 2012.

The discovery was made as part of a next BBC Radio 4 podcast on the disappearance of Austin Tice.

The American journalist disappeared near the Syrian capital of Damascus in August 2012, just a few days after his 31st birthday.

He worked as an independent journalist and left Syria when he was removed.

The fallen regime denying constantly denied knowing where he was – the BBC investigation showed that it was false and that Mr. Tice was detained in Damascus.

Al Hassan, which is subject to the sanctions of the United Kingdom, the EU, Canada and the United States, supervised the establishment where Mr. Tice was held.

Earlier this year, he would have met American police at least three times in Lebanon.

Sources say that at least one of these meetings was in the US Embassy complex.

During these conversations, he would have told the FBI and CIA investigators that President now known Assad had ordered the execution of the American journalist who disappeared Austin Tice.

Familiar sources with the conversations have told the BBC that Al Hassan claims to have initially tried to dissuade President Assad to kill Mr. Tice, but that he finally transmitted this order and that he was carried out.

Al Hassan would also have provided possible locations for the journalist’s body. Familiar sources with the FBI investigation have declared that efforts to confirm the validity of Al Hassan’s statements were underway and a research is intended to perform sites where Mr. Tice’s body could be.

Sources of Western intelligence familiar with the details of the assertion of Al Hassan that President Assad gave the order to kill Mr. Tice is skeptical about what he gives directly such an instruction, because he is known to have mechanisms to distinguish themselves from these actions.

The BBC accompanied Mr. Tice’s mother, Debra, to Beirut as the 13th anniversary of the disappearance of her son. After discovering that Bassam Al Hassan had spoken to American officials, Debra Tice tried to meet Al Hassan herself and contacted the United States Embassy asking for help.

She told the BBC: “I just want to be able to speak to her as a mother and ask her questions about my son.” His attempt to meet Al Hassan failed.

Asked about Al Hassan’s claims, she said that her feeling was that he “fed the FBI a story they wanted to hear” to help them close the case.

Debra Tice has led a tireless and determined campaign to bring her son back home and remains determined to find him. She told the BBC: “I am her mother, I still believe that my son is alive and that he will walk freely.”

In addition, a former member of the NDF having an intimate knowledge of the detention of Austin Tice told the BBC “that the value of Austin had been understood” and that it was a “card” which could be played in diplomatic negotiations with the United States.

Bassam Al Hassan was considered one of President Assad’s most reliable advisers. After the Syrian regime collapse in December, Mr. Al Hassan fled to Iran.

Sources close to him told the BBC that in Iran, Al Hassan had received a telephone call and had been invited to come to Lebanon to meet US officials. It is believed that he has received insurance that he would not be detained.

For years, consecutive American presidents have said that Mr. Tice, a former American captain, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and was a law student at the prestigious University of Georgetown in Washington, was alive.

In December 2024, President Joe Biden told the White House journalists that “we think he is alive” and that “we think we can recover it, but we have no direct proof of this”.