JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A 29-year-old American named Travis Timmerman was found wandering barefoot in Damascus early this morning. He is one of the thousands who have been released from Syria's notorious prisons after rebels toppled the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad. Ruth Sherlock has his story.
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: It all began with a video that was posted on social media.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
SHERLOCK: A pale, disheveled man lies curled under a red blanket. Another points at him and addresses the camera.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
SHERLOCK: "In the early hours of dawn," he says, "this American person was found." He doesn't know his name.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR THUDDING)
SHERLOCK: We jump in the car to try to find him.
We arrived in the area that was named in the video. There's chaos here. Everybody's trying to find out where this could be.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: We found him. We found him.
SHERLOCK: Omar al Naeeme, a local resident, says he was among those who found him.
OMAR AL NAEEME: (Speaking Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: He found him in the street.
AL NAEEME: (Speaking Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: He found him in the street. He was barefoot. And then they took him to the mayor.
SHERLOCK: He took him to the mayor.
He shares a video with us.
AL NAEEME: (Non-English language spoken).
(SOUNDBITE OF MOTOR SPUTTERING)
SHERLOCK: It shows the man, desperately thin, sitting on a plastic chair. The men around him offer him food and asks if he wants something to drink.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Coffee, tea?
TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: (Speaking in Arabic). Water.
SHERLOCK: "Water," he says in Arabic. They ask him who he is.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: What's your name?
TIMMERMAN: Travis.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Travis?
TIMMERMAN: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Country?
TIMMERMAN: United States.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: United States?
SHERLOCK: He's called Travis Timmerman, an American citizen from Missouri. Journalists start arriving, and he's bombarded with questions. He tells them he's a Christian who came here on a pilgrimage that started in Europe.
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TIMMERMAN: I stayed there for a month, and from - in May to the end of May, I was in Zahle, Lebanon.
SHERLOCK: Zahle in Lebanon. And from there, he says, he walked to Damascus.
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TIMMERMAN: And that's when I was arrested. And then I had seven months in prison.
SHERLOCK: Seven months in a Damascus jail. Another reporter asks, how was he treated?
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TIMMERMAN: It was OK. I was fed. I was watered. I was not beaten, and the guards treated me decently.
SHERLOCK: The reporter asks him if he heard people being tortured.
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TIMMERMAN: Yes. I...
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You used to hear that.
TIMMERMAN: Yes, daily.
SHERLOCK: Daily, he says. Torture in the jails of Bashar al-Assad's Syria has been well-documented. With the overthrow of the Assad regime last week, thousands of prisoners, including Timmerman, were released. When he left the prison, he started walking south, trying to get the border with Jordan.
MOUAZ MOUSTAFA: Just getting him some new clothes, some shoes. He was walking barefoot. He was hungry.
SHERLOCK: Mouaz Moustafa, the director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an American aid group, is in Damascus, and he's now trying to get Timmerman home. He says the new authorities in Syria are assisting with the arrangements.
MOUSTAFA: I'm taking him to the U.S. military so they can evacuate him.
SHERLOCK: In the United States, we reach Timmerman's mother, Stacey Collins Gardiner, on a scratchy phone line. She calls his release a Christmas miracle.
STACEY COLLINS GARDINER: I will hug him. I'll be excited, and I probably won't let him go.
SHERLOCK: She will hug him, she says. And then she said, I probably won't let him go. Ruth Sherlock, NPR News, Damascus. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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