The parents of Austin Tice, the American journalist kidnapped in Syria over 12 years ago, are holding onto hope.
Tice’s mother, Debra Tice, spoke at a news conference Friday, Dec. 6, at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., and claimed her journalist son is indeed alive based on a new report.
“We have from a significant source that has already been vetted all over our government, Austin Tice is alive, Austin Tice is treated well,” Debra during at the press conference. “And there is no doubt about that.”
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The U.S. government is concealing the source’s identity, but government officials have verified the source’s credibility, Debra claimed.
At a White House press briefing, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment on the matter, CNN reported.
“I don’t have anything to share about conversation on this particular matter,” Jean-Pierre told the press.
Bill McCarren, the director of the Press Freedom Center at the National Press Club, said he is certain the Biden administration is “lying” about what they know about the journalist’s kidnapping, CNN reports.
The mother continues to believe her son is being held by the Syrian government.
“We’ve always known that,” Debra said.
Debra’s husband and Tice’s father, Marc, also spoke at the press conference.
“We are confident that this information is fresh,” Marc said. “It indicates as late as earlier this year that Austin is alive and being cared for.”
The Tices flew to Washington, D.C., this week amid the revived Syrian civil war between Syrian rebel offenses and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, CBS reports. The family says their meeting was initially scheduled for July and unrelated to the current conflict.
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Tice’s family met with President Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, before the press conference on Friday. In the meeting, they inquired if Biden would contact Assad about their son’s release. Sullivan did not provide them with any assurances, they said.
“There just seems to be a massive disconnect between what President Biden has dictated for Austin in terms of doing everything that we can to bring him home, and then the actions and the behavior of the people that sit just below him,” Simon Tice, the brother of the kidnapped journalist, said.
Tice’s sister Naomi said she asked in the family’s meeting if there was a way to negotiate securing Tice’s freedom: “We were basically just told that we need to wait and see how it pans out,” Naomi said, adding the response was “beyond frustrating.”
However, Debra expressed optimism in President-elect Donald Trump bringing her son home after she said Trump previously “had an obsession” with helping Tice during his previous term.
Originally from Houston, Texas, Tice reported for numerous news organizations including CBS News, The Washington Post and McClatchy, according to CBS News. Tice disappeared on Aug. 14, 2012, while reporting on the Syrian civil war.
Following his kidnapping, a video surfaced weeks later of a blindfolded Tice being held by armed men saying, “Oh, Jesus.” That marked the last time anyone heard from him, per The Guardian. In 2022, Biden said “with certainty” that the U.S. knew that Syrian authorities had Tice in their possession.
The Assad government has denied all allegations of kidnapping Tice.
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