Bassam al-Hassan, a former senior adviser to ex-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, told CNN in September that the Assad regime had killed American journalist Austin Tice, the American site reported earlier this week.
Tice originally went missing in Syria over a decade ago.
After the fall of the Assad regime, Hassan fled to Beirut, where he was first questioned by the FBI and then located by CNN.
“Of course, Austin is dead. Austin is dead,” he said after nodding when asked if Tice was killed in 2013.
“I don’t want to protect Bashar al-Assad because he abandoned and left us,” Hassan added. “I don’t want to protect Russia or Iran, because the US thinks Russia and Iran have something to do with the case. And I can assure you that this is not the case. This relates to President Bashar only.”
Hassan claimed he personally passed on the execution order to a subordinate in the National Defense Forces (NDF).
The subordinate is now understood to be living in Russia, the same country to which Assad fled.
Hassan’s admissions can not be taken as the concrete truth, CNN reported, as he previously failed a polygraph test administered by the FBI, and his account diverges from those provided by multiple sources.
Debates on Austin Tice's status
Despite the lack of information received about Tice over more than a decade, his family has maintained that he is still alive.
Debra Tice, Tice’s mother, discredited Hassan as a “pathological liar.”
“Austin Tice is alive. We look forward to seeing him walk free,” the Tice family told CNN in a statement.
While the Assad regime denied knowledge of Tice the entire time they maintained power in Syria, General Safwan Bahloul, told Al Jazeera earlier this year that he had interrogated Tice in 2012 at the behest of Hassan.
Many of those who spoke to CNN debated the plausibility that Assad would have assassinated a highly valuable prisoner.
“Assad knew about Tice and knew he could use him in negotiations. It would be extremely stupid to kill him… to let go of a winning card in your hand,” Nassour, a former soldier for the Assad regime, said.