The man accused of being responsible for holding the missing American journalist Austin Tice has claimed that ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ordered his execution, security sources have told the BBC.Major General Bassam Al Hassan is a former commander in the Republican Guards who was part of President Assad’s inner circle. He was also the Chief of Staff of the National Defence Forces (NDF), the paramilitary group that a BBC investigation uncovered was responsible for holding Mr Tice after his abduction in 2012.The discovery was made as part of an upcoming BBC Radio 4 podcast about the disappearance of Austin Tice.The American journalist vanished near the Syrian capital of Damascus in August 2012, just days after his 31st birthday. He had been working as a freelance journalist and was leaving Syria when he was abducted. The fallen regime consistently denied knowing of his whereabouts – the BBC investigation showed that was false and that Mr Tice was being held in Damascus.Al Hassan, who is subject to UK, EU, Canadian and US sanctions, oversaw the facility where Mr Tice was held. Earlier this year, he is said to have met with US law enforcement at least three times in Lebanon. Sources claim that at least one of those meetings was in the US embassy complex. During these conversations, he is said to have told investigators from the FBI and CIA that the now-ousted President Assad ordered the execution of missing American journalist Austin Tice. Sources familiar with the conversations told the BBC that Al Hassan claims to have initially tried to dissuade President Assad from killing Mr Tice, but that he eventually passed on this order and that it was carried out. Al Hassan is also understood to have provided possible locations for the journalist’s body. Sources familiar with the FBI investigation have said that efforts to confirm the validity of Al Hassan’s claims are ongoing, and that a search is intended to happen of the sites where Mr Tice’s body could be.Western …
