The former Syrian leader was implemented that the missing American journalist Austin Tess has been implemented

Security sources at the British Broadcasting Authority said that the man accused of responsibility for retaining the missing American journalist Austin Tess claimed that Syrian President Bashar al -Assad ordered his execution.

Major General Basam Al -Hassan is a former leader of the Republican Guard, who was part of the inner circle of President Assad.

He was also the Chief of Staff of the National Defense Forces (NDF), the paramilitary group The BBC’s disclosed investigation was responsible To hold Mr. Tess after his kidnapping in 2012.

This discovery has been discovered as part of the next BBC 4 radio about the disappearance of Austin Tays.

The American journalist disappeared near the Syrian capital of Damascus in August 2012, a few days after his thirty -first birthday.

He was working as an independent journalist and was leaving Syria when he was kidnapped.

The falling regime constantly denied knowing its location – the BBC investigation showed that this was wrong and that Mr. Tays was held in Damascus.

Al -Hassan, who is subject to the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canadian sanctions and the United States, supervised the facility in which Mr. Tess was held.

Earlier this year, it was said that he met the American law enforcement at least three times in Lebanon.

The sources claim that at least one of these meetings was in the American embassy complex.

During these talks, he was said to have told the FBI and CIA investigators that President Assad, who was now an order to execute the missing American journalist Austin Tess.

The sources familiar with the BBC conversations have told Al -Hassan claiming that she initially tried to the two presidents of Assad about the killing of Mr. Tess, but he finally passed on this and that he was implemented.

It is also understood that Al -Hassan has provided possible sites for the journalist’s body. The sources familiar with the investigation of the FBI said that the efforts made to confirm the validity of Al -Hassan’s claims are continuing, and that it aims to take place in the sites where the body of Mr. Tess can be.

Western intelligence sources familiar with the details of Al -Hassan’s claim that President al -Assad gave the order to kill Mr. Tess, questioning that he would give such instructions directly, because he is known for mechanisms to clean such procedures.

BBC was accompanied by the mother of Mr. Tess, Dibra, Beirut on the thirteenth anniversary of the approach of her son’s disappearance. Upon discovery that Basam Al -Hassan had spoken to American officials, Dibra Tess tried to meet Al -Hassan herself and contacted the American embassy asking for help.

“I just want to be able to talk to him as a mother and ask him about my son,” BBC told BBC. Her attempt to meet Hassan did not succeed.

When she was asked about Al -Hassan’s allegations, she said that her feeling was that “the FBI fed a story they wanted to hear” to help them close the case.

Dibera Tess led a campaign that is not attractive and a crisis to bring her son home and remain committed to finding him. “I am his mother, I still think my son is alive and that he will walk free.”

“The value of Austin was understood” and that it was a “card” that could be played in diplomatic negotiations with the United States.

Basam Al -Hassan is one of the most reliable advisers of President Assad. After the collapse of the Syrian regime in December, Mr. Al -Hassan fled to Iran.

The sources close to the BBC told that while he was in Iran, Al -Hassan received a phone call and was asked to come to Lebanon to meet with US officials. It is believed that he had assurances that he would not be held.

For years, US presidents, respectively, said that Mr. Tess, the former US navy commander, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and was a law student at the prestigious Georgetown University in Washington, was alive.

In December 2024, President Joe Biden told the White House correspondents, “We think he is alive,” and “we believe we can recover, but we have no direct evidence of that yet.”