BEIRUT: Lebanese ex-hostage Ali Termos says his Syrian rebel captors moved him 13 times during his 17-month ordeal, constantly stringing him along with the lie that freedom was hours away.

“My nerves were wrecked. I counted that we were moved 13 times, maybe more,” he said in his living room, hours after his release and return home late Saturday via Turkey.

“They told us we would be freed 100 times. But they were lying, they would move us and then there was no release. It tormented our morale,” he said.

Termos was among 11 men abducted by rebel fighters in northern Syria in May 2012 as they were returning from Iran along with female relatives.

They had traveled by bus through Turkey and were heading home when rebels fighting to oust the Syrian regime seized them just a short distance away from the border crossing into Lebanon.

The gunmen ordered all 11 males off the buses but let the women continue on their journey. Two men were subsequently freed.

The nine others returned home at the weekend thanks to a deal mediated by Qatar and Turkey, which also led to the freedom of two Turkish pilots who had been seized in Beirut in August in a tit-for-tat abduction.

Termos recalled how they were moved to various rebel positions near the Turkish border, including a tent under scorching heat and a room with bare essentials.

The men only had the clothes on their backs which they washed and put out to dry, he said.

“For a while they brought us ready-made food, but the rest of the time they brought us foodstuff and we had to cook. Sometimes we had to cook in a bathroom.

“One of our captors asked me ‘What will you say about us after you are released?’ I did not answer. “What can I say about someone who abducted me and deprived me of my wife and my children? That he was feeding me?“

Ali Abbas had harsher words for his captors. “You know psychological and moral abuse and undermining people’s dignity is worse than physical abuse,” he said. “Our worst fear was fear itself.”

“Eleven of the sites they took us to were totally destroyed in bombardment and blasts and many times we thought the would kill us,” he added.

But both Termos and Abbas said they were not beaten or tortured by their captors.

Abbas said their fate changed on Thursday when their captors forced them to don bags over their heads and drove them to an unknown destination. They were taken into a room where a man awaited them, saying “’You are safe inside Turkish territory,’” said Abbas.