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A former Syrian general who once oversaw the country's chemical weapons programme is allegedly being funded and shielded by American and Lebanese authorities, according to a joint investigation by BBC News and the US broadcaster NPR. Bassam al-Hassan, a onetime senior adviser to former President Bashar al-Assad, is wanted over crimes against humanity committed during the Assad regime, yet is reported to be living under an arrangement that has kept him out of the reach of Syrian justice.
Hassan is understood to have fled Syria following the collapse of the Assad regime in late 2024, initially escaping to Iran. From there, negotiations involving the United States, Lebanon and Iran are said to have taken place to relocate him to Lebanon, where he is now being harboured. A Syrian businessman with connections to both the former regime and the Lebanese authorities told the BBC that Hassan's value lay not only in what he is believed to know about the disappearance of American journalist Austin Tice, but in his broader knowledge of sensitive matters from the Assad era.
The arrangement, which sources say was struck in the spring of 2025, is believed to involve the FBI alongside other US and Lebanese bodies. At the centre of it is a detailed record of a meeting between Hassan, FBI and CIA representatives, and Lebanese security officials, which the BBC reviewed as part of a years-long inquiry featured in its new podcast series, Where is Austin Tice? In that meeting, Hassan was reportedly offered residency, protection and assistance with his living costs in return for information, primarily concerning the Tice case.
Sources with knowledge of the deal confirmed that account and described how Hassan receives money from US authorities through an intermediary — a method that makes the payments more difficult to trace. The irony is compounded by the fact that Hassan is himself sanctioned by the US government. Officials from two separate branches of Syria's new government told the BBC that they want Hassan returned to Damascus to face trial, but that US authorities wish him to remain in Lebanon, and there is little the Syrian capital can do to challenge that.
The Tice case has haunted American families for more than a decade. Austin Tice disappeared in Syria in 2012, and the BBC revealed only last month that his abduction was a planned operation with Hassan in the chain of command. That finding places the general at the heart of one of the most high-profile missing-person cases involving a Western journalist, and helps explain why US agencies would consider him worth cultivating despite his alleged role in regime atrocities.
Yet people connected to the investigation say they have seen little evidence that it has significantly advanced since Hassan began providing information under the agreement. Sources have expressed concern that the arrangement could continue indefinitely, at considerable expense to American taxpayers, while delivering limited intelligence returns in exchange. One source described fears that the deal represents a poor trade-off — sustained cost without commensurate gain.
The Hassan case is not an isolated example. The BBC spoke to other former members of the Assad regime whose connections to the Tice investigation appear to have secured them financial help or support for living abroad. One former regime figure said he had received money from the FBI multiple times in exchange for co-operation on Tice's case, and admitted he had an incentive to withhold information to keep the payments flowing.
That individual said it was "not in his interest to share all the information all at once," because doing so would allow him to drag out the period during which he continues to receive payments from US authorities. Another former regime member linked to the Tice case claimed to be living in Lebanon under the "patronage" of the US authorities, and cited that protection as the reason he would not speak to the BBC about Tice's disappearance.
A former senior Lebanese intelligence official confirmed to the BBC that Lebanese intelligence does maintain arrangements with the Americans, and that such payments have taken place, and continue to take place, when the two agencies have overlapping interests in a case. However, he said he had no knowledge of any payments connected specifically to the Tice investigation.
The BBC put its findings to the FBI, the CIA, and Lebanon's General Directorate of General Security. Only the FBI responded, declining to comment directly and instead referring the corporation to a previous statement asserting that its focus remained on establishing the facts around the Tice case and securing his return home.
The Tice family, meanwhile, responded with dismay to the allegations. Phil Elwood, a spokesperson for the family, said that if the BBC's findings were true, it was offensive that US tax dollars were being used to furnish a comfortable life for a man associated with the use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians — and one who claims to have had Austin Tice executed. "This is nothing less than aiding and abetting the escape of a wanted war criminal," Elwood said, adding that Syrians deserve justice and that Hassan should be returned to stand trial.
The allegations raise difficult questions for Washington, which has publicly pursued accountability for Assad-era atrocities while simultaneously seeking answers about one of its own citizens. For Syrians who endured chemical attacks and other abuses, the prospect that a sanctioned former general might live comfortably abroad in exchange for selectively shared intelligence is likely to deepen perceptions of double standards.
Syria's new authorities, for their part, have signalled that they intend to pursue former regime figures through the courts, but the standoff over Hassan suggests the limits of that ambition while a foreign power effectively guarantees his safety. Unless the arrangement changes, a man accused of crimes against humanity may remain beyond the reach of the country that wants him most — and beyond the scrutiny of the taxpayers funding his protection.
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