Bassam al-Hassan, a former commander in the Republican Guards reportedly claimed that ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had ordered the execution of missing American journalist Austin Tice.

This revelation is part of a BBC investigation into Tice’s disappearance. Tice, a former U.S. Marine and freelance journalist, was abducted near Damascus in August 2012 while preparing to leave Syria after reporting on the civil war. For years, the Assad regime maintained it had no knowledge of his whereabouts.

According to the BBC, al-Hassan, who also served as Chief of Staff of the National Defence Forces (NDF), a regime-aligned paramilitary group, made this claim during at least three meetings with U.S. officials in Lebanon earlier this year, including one at the U.S. embassy. 

He told FBI and CIA investigators that he first tried to stop Assad but eventually passed on the execution order, which was carried out. He also shared possible locations of Tice’s remains. 

Despite al-Hassan’s claims, the BBC reported that new evidence revealed Tice was actually held in a Damascus facility under al-Hassan’s supervision.

A former NDF member told the BBC that Tice was seen as a valuable asset for future 

negotiations with the U.S., raising doubts about why Assad would want him killed.

Speaking to the BBC, Debra Tice suggested that al-Hassan may have told U.S. authorities “a story they wanted to hear” to help bring the case to a close. She added, “I am his mother, I still believe that my son is alive and that he will walk free.”

Tice is among at least 11 U.S. citizens killed or disappeared in Syria, a country where the civil war has left over 130,000 people missing due to forced disappearances, detentions, and abductions.