While the Biden administration trumpeted the release Thursday of four Americans, a dozen Germans and one Russian-British dissident in one of the most complex prisoner swaps with Russia since the Cold War, U.S. officials were conspicuously silent about the fate of Austin Tice, the freelance journalist who disappeared in Syria in 2012 while covering the civil war there.
Both National Security Council officials and the office of Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, did not respond to queries asking whether Tice’s release was included in the negotiations for the U.S.-Russia prisoner swap, which involved five different countries and were in the works for more than a year. Spokespersons for the congressional intelligence and foreign affairs committees also declined to comment on Tice’s situation.
Russia is a close ally of Syria, wielding considerable influence with its leader, President Bashar al-Assad, since the military assistance it provided him during the country’s civil war is widely credited with saving his regime, and arguably, his life.
But press freedom advocates took note of Tice’s absence from the list of Americans released by Russia , which included journalists Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal; Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian-British scribe whose work for The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize earlier this…
