Add The New York Post on Google Missing US journalist Austin Tice was betrayed by his trusted driver and handed off to ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship in a calculated operation that was planned for months, according to a terrifying new report.
Tice, who disappeared in Syria in 2012 while covering the brutal civil war, was believed to have been abducted by chance after stumbling upon a government checkpoint.
New documents and interviews from within Assad’s ousted regime, however, revealed Tice was intentionally lured to the site by a man he trusted who had direct access to the dictator’s loyalists, the BBC reported.
Abu Ali, a former member of Syria’s National Defense Forces, said the driver, Hamid Abu Obeid, had been passing on information to the regime about Tice’s reporting for some time before he was taken.
The American journalist had pushed deep into the war zone deemed too dangerous by other journalists and written about the opposition fighting Assad’s forces, as well as the human rights abuses committed by the regime.
Tice, who was a trained Marine, also allegedly shared his military experience with the opposition and would even correct fighters on how to use their weapons, giving the impression to the regime — which had begun surveilling him on the back of the information provided to them by the driver — that the reporter was an American agent helping the uprising, according to documents the BCC reviewed.
There has never been any evidence that Tice’s activities in Syria ever went beyond covering the civil war.
At the time, Assad was cracking down on anyone critical of his government, with Abu Obeid assuring NDF members like Sakr Rustom and his uncle, Bassam al-Hassan, that he could deliver Tice to them.
“He trusts me,” Abu Obeid allegedly told the NDF, Ali said.
Tice allegedly trusted the driver so much that he laughed off the moment Abu Obeid pointed a gun at him on what would be their last ride together.
Tice was set to leave Syria when Abu Obeid drove him to the outskirts of Damascus, handing him over to the NDF militia and ignoring the journalist’s pleas not to go through with the kidnapping.
A former NDF member interviewed by the BBC said he will never forget Tice’s expression after realizing he had been betrayed by his trusted driver.
The kidnapping was handled by Hassan, an Assad loyalist who contacted the dictator immediately to tell him that they had captured the American.
Abu Obeid, whose family identified him as a Palestinian refugee from Gaza, said the driver had been promised a passport, Syrian citizenship, a house, and weapons in exchange for Tice’s life.
The traitor, however, was only given a gun for selling out his friend, his brother said.
After Assad’s regime fell, Abu Obeid was allegedly confronted by a man who knew about his involvement in Tice’s case and threatened to rat him out to the US and Syria’s new government in order to secure asylum.
Abu Tice, who disappeared in Syria in 2012 while covering the brutal civil war, was believed to have been abducted by chance after stumbling upon a government checkpoint. Abu Obeid has been missing ever since, his wife told the BBC, unsure if he has been detained or killed.
Meanwhile, the mystery still remains over what happened to Tice as the US and new Syrian government work to try and locate him and others who disappeared under the Assad regime.
Hassan, who orchestrated the kidnapping, told CNN that Tice was dead, but offered no evidence to support the claim or information as to where a body would be located.
Tice’s family maintains hope that he is still alive somewhere until they are presented with evidence to the contrary.
They also accused Hassan of being a “pathological liar” attempting to win some kind of favor with the US and new Syrian government by helping close the 13-year-old case.
