Debra Tice, the mother of journalist Austin Tice, who has been missing since he was detained in Syria in 2012, said Sunday on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that seeing another missing American, Travis Timmerman, being found in Damascus was "almost like having a rehearsal ... of what it’s going to really feel like when it is Austin walking free."
Despite initial reports Wednesday that the American found in Damascus might be Austin Tice, Debra Tice said, she knew instantly it wasn't her son.
"My oldest daughter came into my room at 4:25 and said: 'Mom, you know, we have this video. You need to look at it. We don't think it's Austin, but a lot of people think it's Austin, so we want you to look and see if it's Austin,'" she recalled.
She added, "I took a glance, and I said, 'No, that is not Austin.'"
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She described the number of people who reached out to the family that day with congratulatory messages, believing Timmerman was Austin Tice.
"It's almost like having a rehearsal, you know? Just an inkling of what it's going to really feel like when it is Austin walking free," she told moderator Kristen Welker.
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Austin Tice disappeared in 2012, when he was in Syria reporting on the country's civil war.
Shortly after he disappeared, the State Department State Department concluded that he was being held by the hostile Syrian government, which former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad denied for years.
Since the Assad regime toppled, thousands of prisoners held captive have been freed, but it is still unclear where Tice was being held and whether he has been released.
A former prisoner told NBC News that in the last few weeks he was held captive in a cell across the hall from Tice and saw him alive as recently as July 2022.
NBC News can't independently verify the account, but Debra Tice said Sunday that "we were able to verify that he was" there in 2022.
The new leadership of Syria's rebel government blamed Assad for the pain inflicted on Tice's family this month. A spokesperson for the government claimed that it was trying to locate Tice but had so far had no luck.
"We tried as much as possible to find information about Austin and return him to his mother, but we have not reached any result," the spokesperson said.
Even though her son hasn’t been located yet, Debra Tice said that she remained hopeful he would be found and that her family shares “joy” with the Timmerman family.
“The way that I’ve been feeling about the people that I see coming out and even Travis — you know that feeling where, as humans, we share joy, right? We share suffering, too, but we share joy. And so just seeing these families reunited — think about Travis’ family being reunited with him — you know, what incredible joy, and we can share that,” she told Welker.
Last weekend, after he addressed reporters at the White House, President Joe Biden said: "We believe he’s alive. We think we can get him back, but we have no direct evidence of that yet. And Assad should be held accountable.
“We want to get him out. We have to identify where he is,” Biden said.
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