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Travis Pete Timmerman, a U.S. citizen who went missing in Syria, speaks to press after being released from the Sednaya Prison in Damascus, Syria, on December 12. (Abdulkarem Al Mohammad/Anadolu/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)
By Clarissa Ward, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Catherine Nicholls, CNN
(CNN) — A missing US man has been found in Syria, where he says he was kept in prison for months after entering the country as a pilgrim.
Travis Timmerman spoke to several outlets Thursday, after locals saw him walking barefoot in the streets of southern Damascus.
Thousands of people have been released from prisons across Syria this week, after rebels toppled the country’s former president Bashar al-Assad.
Speaking to CBS News, Timmerman said he had been detained in a Syrian prison for several months after entering the country without permission, having crossed its border with Lebanon.
He had decided to travel to Syria for “spiritual purposes,” he told the network.
He said that his cell door was broken down on Monday by two men armed with AK-47s, CBS News reported, and left the prison with a large group to try and reach Jordan.
Timmerman’s time being held in the Syrian prison “wasn’t too bad,” he said, according to CBS News.
“I was never beaten. The only really bad part was that I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I wanted to. I was only let out three times a day to go to the bathroom,” he said.
Timmerman made similar comments to NBC and the Al-Arabiya TV network Thursday.
An alert that Timmerman had gone missing was posted by Hungarian police in August, though a Facebook post written by a family friend said that he had been missing since June. He was last seen in Budapest in late May, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said in a public awareness bulletin.
When he was found, those on the ground were also looking for the missing US journalist Austin Tice, who has been held in Syria since 2012. Though he not yet been found, the interim Syrian government said in a statement on Thursday that efforts to locate Tice are ongoing.
The Syrian government also confirmed Timmerman’s release.
The US is “aware of reports of an American found outside of Damascus and seeking to provide support,” a US official told CNN. “Out of respect for his privacy, we have no further information to provide at this time.”
CNN has approached Timmerman’s family and friends for comment.
The-CNN-Wire
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