CNN said that a man who previously claimed to be a civilian detained in a Syrian prison was actually a military intelligence officer for the Assad regime, citing local sources.
During a segment that aired Dec. 12, CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward and her camera crew found a man who claimed he was locked away for months in a Damascus prison before the Assad regime fell. In the footage, the man identified himself as a civilian named Adel Ghurbal and reacted with joy and disbelief when he was led outside.
However, Verify-Sy, a Syrian fact-checking organization, later identified the man as Salama Mohammad Salama, a resident of the central Syrian city of Homs and a lieutenant in the Assad regime’s Air Force Intelligence directorate. CNN identified the man as Salama on Monday.
The network said a resident of Homs provided them with a photo of Salama sitting behind a desk at what appears to be a government office. Facial recognition software said the man rescued from the Damascus prison was a 99 percent match with the former regime officer.
Locals told both Verify-Sy and CNN that he was responsible for running security checkpoints in the al-Bayyada neighborhood of Homs, where he was notorious for running extortion rackets.
Though it appeared Salama may have been a prisoner, “it’s unclear how or why Salama ended up in the Damascus jail, and CNN has not been able to reestablish contact with him,” the outlet said.
The Daily Beast has not independently verified the allegations.
“No one other than the CNN team was aware of our plans to visit the prison building featured in our report that day,” a CNN spokesperson told the Daily Beast on Sunday after the first report was published by Verify-Sy. “The events transpired as they appear in our film. The decision to release the prisoner featured in our report was taken by the guard—a Syrian rebel. We reported the scene as it unfolded, including what the prisoner told us, with clear attribution."
At the same time, a CNN spokesperson said the network was already investigating the allegations that the prisoner gave them a “false identity,” and would continue to report the story as it unfolded.
