Public statements and behind-the-scenes efforts meshed in the successful effort to gain the release Friday of Middlebury College student Pathik “Tik” Root from two weeks of detention in Syria.
The Middlebury junior, 21, appears to be in good shape, according to his family; Root told American officials his biggest discomfort “was not having his shoes.”
Officials began to gain hope for his release on Thursday, the day U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., made what he now calls a “carefully calibrated” speech in the Senate about the Root case in which he urged the Syrian government to give American officials “immediate access” to Tik Root.
“When I was talking with the Syrians and our American ambassador to Syria, as late as last night ... they thought he might not be released until Saturday,” Leahy said Friday.
In the wee hours Friday, the senator received a phone call at home from the Syrian ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha.
“He apologized for calling me at home and then said it was good news,” a hoarse Leahy said by telephone Friday afternoon.
Root’s release was met with jubilation and relief by Root’s family, the Middlebury College community and Vermonters who’d made their support clear to the student’s parents, Tom Root and Andrea Lloyd.
“More news later, in the meantime, join us in breathing a gigantic sigh of relief,” the parents posted Friday on a Facebook page devoted to Tik Root’s plight.
“He sounded fine,” Root’s sister, Radhika Root, 19, told the Burlington Free Press on Friday morning. “I think he’s a little emotional right now, but I think we all would be.”
Reached by telephone in Syria, Tik Root said he did not wish to speak until he had left the country.
He’d been detained March 18, apparently as he took photographs of an anti-government demonstration in Syria. Upon his release, he first was handed over to Syrian immigration authorities under the Ministry of Interior, and after that to U.S. Vice Consul Miriam Asnes, according to Leahy’s office.
U.S. consular officials have been working with Root on arrangements for departure from Syria, which could happen as soon as today.
Leahy said Root’s plans were unclear, but said he advised him to get on a plane and come home. “I hope he will,” Leahy said.
The senator said the effort to free Root went well because his office has had experience with such cases.
“We have done this many times,” he said.
Leahy said he attempted to establish a personal connection with the Syrian ambassador, asking him, for instance, if he hadn’t done things as a 21-year-old that he later regretted. That, he said, drew a laugh from Moustapha.
He described Moustapha as knowledgeable about the United States and of Leahy, mentioning in “flawless English” that he was aware of Leahy’s hobby of photography, the senator said.
Moustapha, whom Leahy has invited to his office next week, has “connections at the highest levels” of the Syrian government, Leahy said.
The senator also had met U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, a career diplomat, years ago. American officials in Damascus wanted the Syrians to construe they were doing the Americans a favor rather than responding to threats, Leahy said.
“We didn’t want to do anything to rock the boat,” Leahy said.
With that in mind, Leahy’s speech Thursday about Root to the Senate was “carefully calibrated,” he said. “The timing was not accidental.”
Those remarks portrayed Root, an international studies major, as a young student who “was doing nothing wrong and at most ... was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I would hope,” Leahy said in the speech Thursday, “that the Syrian government recognizes the innocent conduct of a young, curious American student who is fascinated, as we all are, by the extraordinary events taking place across North Africa and the Middle East.”
He said the remarks deliberately contained a hint of impatience — noting that as of Thursday, no American official had been able to see Root, and he urged the Syrians to release the Ripton man.
“This is not a time to be confusing a young American college student with the popular forces that are calling for political change in Syria,” he said in the speech. “Tik is an innocent 21-year-old who poses no threat whatsoever to the Syrian government, but his continued detention will only further complicate our already difficult relations with Syria.”
By Friday morning, Root was freed.
Leahy said he passed the news to Tom Root just as he was getting off a plane Friday morning in New York.
“He was pretty overwhelmed,” Leahy said.
Leahy said he approached Root’s arrest and imprisonment as “a Vermonter and as a parent” and understood how it would be for Root’s parents to “put their arms around him and say, ‘You’re safe.’”
“Unfortunately,” he said “we were dealing with a country that holds all the cards. We had to play on their field.”
A call Friday to Middlebury’s International Studies program was forwarded to college spokeswoman Sarah Ray, who said the school would not participate in interviews about Root.
“Right now, our focus is on still being supportive of the family,” Ray said.
Root had been studying Arabic in Alexandria, Egypt, until late January, when he and fellow Middlebury College students were evacuated amid unrest there. He recently decided to resume his study of Arabic as an independent student at Damascus University.
“The college remains committed to encouraging its students to study abroad,” Ray wrote in an e-mail Friday. “The language skills and cultural immersion gained through the experience of studying abroad are immense, and contribute to a broader cross-cultural understanding that is increasingly needed in a global society. At the same time, Middlebury College closely monitors the situation in areas where current events affect Middlebury students studying abroad since the health and safety of our students is our top priority.”
Middlebury President Ron Liebowitz said in a prepared statement that the college anxiously awaited news of Root’s condition since his capture.
“We are thrilled for his parents, Tom Root and Andi Lloyd, and their family now that they will be reunited, and we all look forward to seeing Tik when he returns to Vermont,” Liebowitz said in the statement. “The college has received a great deal of support in its efforts to assist the family in obtaining Tik’s release, and we are enormously grateful.”
