A top Syrian general under President Bashar al-Assad before his ouster has surfaced in Lebanon, where he told U.S. investigators that Austin Tice, an American journalist who went missing in 2012, was dead and provided the possible site of his grave, according to people familiar with the matter.
In meetings with the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., the former commander, Bassam Hassan, a top adviser to Mr. al-Assad who was accused of facilitating the country’s chemical weapons attacks on civilians, disclosed in recent weeks that Mr. al-Assad, the authoritarian leader who was toppled in December, had ordered the killing of Mr. Tice. The journalist was kidnapped more than a decade ago at a checkpoint in a suburb of Damascus.
The claims made by Mr. Hassan could not be independently verified, but the disappearance has long frustrated the American government.
For more than a decade, the United States has hunted for information about Mr. Tice’s whereabouts, holding out hope that he survived Syria’s brutal prison system, where torture and killings were routine. The rapid collapse of Mr. Assad’s reign after more than a half-century of family rule helped renew the search for Mr. Tice, with American investigators believing they might finally learn his fate.
Nearly a dozen people, including former and current U.S. officials, as well as past associates of Mr. Hassan familiar with the events, spoke to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity to discuss details intended to remain private or because they feared retribution.
American intelligence agencies have long believed that Mr. Hassan played a critical role in Mr. Tice’s imprisonment. His name was one of several the Biden administration gave the rebel group that toppled the Syrian government in the hopes it could obtain information about Mr. Tice. Mr. Hassan, American officials believe, could provide clues about not only Mr. Tice but also other matters of importance to the United States and its allies.
A former senior American official familiar with the Tice case said there should be skepticism about what Mr. Hassan told investigators because of a possible desire to cast blame on Mr. al-Assad.
Mr. al-Assad fled to Moscow after the collapse of his government, leaving behind some of his most ardent supporters. Several Syrian and Lebanese officials with ties to the former al-Assad government expressed similar concerns over Mr. Hassan’s testimony.
Indeed, former American officials who handled the case say that over the years they have received conflicting information about whether Mr. Tice is alive or dead.
In a statement, the F.B.I. declined to comment, citing an open investigation. It added that it remained “steadfast in our determination to locate and bring home hostages or their remains to their families.”
In a statement to The New York Times, a representative for the Tice family said they were disappointed that Mr. Hassan’s account was being published and expressed doubt about its veracity.
“Based on firsthand information, the Tice family believes this version of events is false and it is unhelpful to their efforts to locate and safely return Austin,” the statement said.
The BBC News also reported that Mr. Hassan had told intelligence officials that Mr. Tice had been executed.
As one of Mr. al-Assad’s closest security advisers, Mr. Hassan is accused of helping orchestrate attacks involving a lethal nerve agent in 2013 in the Ghouta suburbs outside Damascus. Former officials under Mr. Assad and American officials have also described Mr. Hassan as a close partner of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in Syria, with direct insights into Iranian activities in the region.
He has long drawn the attention of the authorities abroad. In 2014, Mr. Hassan was sanctioned by the United States over weapons procurement. In 2023, French investigative judges issued an international warrant for Mr. Hassan, accusing him of helping organize the 2013 attacks involving sarin gas through his role coordinating between the president and the production of chemical weapons at the Syrian Scientific Research Center.
On Dec. 8, 2024, after a rebel coalition entered Damascus, Mr. Hassan escaped to Iran with the help of Iranian officials, according to four former Syrian officials and a retired Lebanese security official.
The people familiar with the case said Mr. Hassan had willingly traveled from Iran to Lebanon and interacted with U.S. and Lebanese officials without coercion. Efforts to reach Mr. Hassan for comment were unsuccessful. Mr. Hassan was not being detained, according to former Lebanese and Syrian officials, who added that he appeared to be living freely in an upscale neighborhood of Beirut, going out to dinner with his wife and seeking medical care for an illness.
Over a period of time since late April, Mr. Hassan was interviewed by F.B.I. agents and C.I.A. officials. It is not clear how many times the investigators spoke to Mr. Hassan, or the extent of the information he provided about Mr. Tice or other aspects of Syria’s chemical weapons program or other activities under Mr. al-Assad.
Diplomatic efforts, along with a C.I.A. task force and secret outreach by the spy agency’s officials, failed to turn up information about Mr. Tice. American officials were deflated after the government fell, and they were not able to unravel the mystery of Mr. Tice’s abduction even with a sizable reward and U.S. spy agencies focused on Syria. The country’s new president, Ahmed al-Shara, also agreed to help search for Mr. Tice as part of his overtures to Washington.
Mr. Tice, a former Marine who graduated from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and was also enrolled in law school there, was abducted in August 2012 after traveling to a suburb of Damascus. Weeks later, he appeared blindfolded in a video with masked men carrying assault rifles. Former American officials believe that the video might have been a ruse to blame militants for his abduction.
Mr. Tice escaped weeks later but was recaptured by one of the security branches. A witness told the F.B.I. that Mr. Hassan was involved in Mr. Tice’s capture and imprisonment. After his recapture, Mr. Tice was placed in a detention facility under the control of Mr. Hassan, who was in charge of Mr. al-Assad’s security, according to people familiar with the case.
In 2022 and 2023, senior White House officials traveled to Oman to meet with Imad Moustapha, a former Syrian ambassador. The U.S. officials confronted Mr. Moustapha with a document showing that the Syrians had Mr. Tice in their custody in 2012. The document, one of the U.S. officials said, was the equivalent of what is known in law enforcement circles as a “BOLO” — or be on the lookout — as Syrian officials combed Damascus looking for Mr. Tice after his escape.
It was the best piece of evidence at the time that the Syrians had in fact been holding Mr. Tice, despite never acknowledging he was in their custody and failing to respond to diplomatic efforts to free him.
This month, BBC News reported that it had obtained a trove of intelligence files that showed he had been held in prison in Damascus. In interviews, a former Syrian general, Safwan Bahloul, said he had interrogated Mr. Tice, the first time any Syrian official had disclosed having had contact with him.
A doctor close to Mr. Hassan has also acknowledged treating Mr. Tice.
Early in Syria’s civil war, Mr. Hassan worked with Iran to help establish a paramilitary force known as the National Defense Forces, which received funding and training from Tehran. The National Defense Forces, according to former leaders, was modeled after Iran’s Basij, a plainclothes militia under the umbrella of the Revolutionary Guards.
The BBC reported that Mr. Tice had been held by the National Defense Forces at one point.
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.
Adam Goldman writes about the F.B.I. and national security for The Times. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.
Haley Willis is a Times reporter with the Visual Investigations team, covering conflict, corruption and human rights.
Christiaan Triebert is a Times reporter working on the Visual Investigations team, a group that combines traditional reporting with digital sleuthing and analysis of visual evidence to verify and source facts from around the world.
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