For 13 years, the family of Austin Tice, a Marine veteran and freelance journalist taken hostage in Syria in 2012, has sought any information about his whereabouts and condition.
Tice’s mother, Debra Tice, publicly shared some details Thursday from declassified documents she and her husband, Marc Tice, were allowed to view earlier this year.
Debra Tice shared images of some of the documents, many heavily redacted, at the National Press Club during an event that marked the 13th anniversary of Austin Tice’s capture.
The documents are part of a larger trove of information shared with the Tice family by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard earlier this year, Debra Tice said. She and her husband spent 17 hours over two days reviewing eight, four-inch binders of materials with intelligence — much of it uncorroborated — about their son.
Over the years, the Tice family was told U.S. officials did not have new information regarding Austin’s capture or detention. But the documents they reviewed showed previously unknown details, including about medical treatment he received while being held in Syria.
“Our government had information almost every single day of Austin Tice’s detention,” Debra Tice said.
Austin Tice worked as a freelance journalist covering Syria’s civil war when he was taken hostage near Damascus around Aug. 13, 2012. He was 31 at the time and had previously served as a Marine captain with deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
In December 2024, when the Syrian government fell to rebel forces, there was hope that Austin Tice would be found among the many prisoners. President Joe Biden said at the time that Tice was alive, even though officials had no direct evidence of his status.
In June, reports emerged that the U.S. government was investigating claims by a former Syrian official that Tice was killed in Syria in 2013 at the behest of then-President Bashar al-Assad.
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Debra Tice said the documents shown to them refute this claim, which was made by Bassam al-Hassan, a strategic advisor and member of Assad’s inner circle.
Hassan claimed that Assad ordered Tice’s killing after he briefly escaped his prison cell in 2013. But experts, including Nizar Zakka, head of Hostage Aid Worldwide, said Hassan’s story is hard to believe. Zakka spoke via Zoom at the Thursday event.
“Assad will never, ever give the order to kill an American citizen,” Zakka said. “This is out of the question.”
U.S. government officials told The Washington Post that Hassan’s claims are unsubstantiated.
Also appearing at the Press Club event was Kieran Ramsey, a former director of the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, who worked on Tice’s case before he retired. Ramsey blamed bureaucracy for standing in the way of getting Austin back.
“Bureaucracy has been the ultimate agent of evil when it comes to getting Austin home,” Ramsey said.
While proof of life has a high threshold, Ramsey said, so does proof of death.
“As we sit here right now, there isn’t any,” Ramsey said.
The Tice family hasn’t wavered in believing that Austin is alive, and his parents reiterated that belief Thursday.
“My son is not dead, and we are working to get him home,” Debra Tice said.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
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