A CNN team rescued a ‘prisoner’ from Syrian jail. Now, the outlet admits he was an Assad torturer

Days after airing an emotional segment showing a man supposedly freed from a Syrian prison, CNN updated its story to acknowledge that the “victim” of Bashar al-Assad’s regime was actually an Assad intelligence officer accused of torturing and extorting local residents.

The network’s update did not include a retraction or an apology and comes after CNN came under fire for possibly “fabricating” the story after fact-checking group Verify-Sy reported that the man had been identified as a torturer for the deposed Syrian dictator. In the wake of Verify-Sy’s report, CNN stated that it was investigating whether the freed prisoner had given their reporters a “false identity.”

Following the sudden fall of al-Assad’s brutal dictatorship this month, CNN correspondent Clarissa Ward went viral with a stunning report that featured her crew discovering a startled “prisoner” in a secret jail facility in Damascus.

Accompanied by a Syrian rebel serving as an armed guard, according to CNN, Ward’s team visited a prison building at the Syrian Air Force Intelligence headquarters as part of a search for missing American journalist Austin Tice. Nobody at the facility was previously aware that the camera crew was coming, and the visit was unannounced, the network added.

Once inside the building, according to the report, Ward noticed that one door was locked and it appeared that someone was inside. After the armed guard shot the lock off the door, the CNN team found a man hiding under a blanket and seemingly traumatized. The man, who identified himself as Adel Ghurbal from Homs, asked for water and food while claiming he had not seen sunlight for three months.

After the guard called for an ambulance, the man said he’d been arrested three months prior and had spent time in several jails. He also asserted that he’d been interrogated over his phone contacts. The Syrian Arab Red Crescent, who took the man for medical attention, later said on social media that they had dropped him off with relatives.

CNN’s story quickly came under intense scrutiny, largely because “Adel Ghurbal” seemed fairly well-groomed and physically healthy for someone who had supposedly been tortured in solitary confinement. Additionally, his reaction to the sunlight didn’t match his claim that he’d been in the dark for months.

Amid allegations that CNN had “fabricated” the story, independent fact-checking group Verify-Sy – part of Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network – concluded that the man in the network’s report was actually an officer in Assad’s military who was well-known in the area for his “grim history” of detaining and torturing Syrian civilians.

“The team discovered that his real name is ‘Salama Mohammad Salama,’ a revelation that brought shocking details to light. Salama, known as ‘Abu Hamza,’ is a first lieutenant in Syrian Air Force Intelligence, notorious for his activities in Homs,” Verify-Sy reported. “Residents of the Al-Bayyada neighborhood identified him as frequently stationed at a checkpoint in the area’s western entrance, infamous for its abuses.”

The fact-checker continued: “Abu Hamza reportedly managed several security checkpoints in Homs and was involved in theft, extortion, and coercing residents into becoming informants. According to locals, his recent incarceration—lasting less than a month—was due to a dispute over profit-sharing from extorted funds with a higher-ranking officer.”

After Verify-Sy published its findings on Sunday, CNN denied that its reporters had fabricated its reporting. However, the network noted it had launched an investigation into the prisoner’s identity and claims.

“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 said in a statement to The Independent. “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.”

The spokesperson concluded: “We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given a false identity. We are continuing our reporting into this and the wider story.”

Meanwhile, Verify-Sy stated that local residents “testified that Abu Hamza has been attempting to garner sympathy since the fall of the regime, claiming he was ‘forced’ into committing his crimes.” It also reported that the man in the CNN report has “deactivated his social media accounts and changed his phone number, presumably to erase evidence of his involvement in armed activities and war crimes.”

In its updated story on Monday evening, CNN said that it had obtained an image from a local resident that showed the man to “be a lieutenant in the Assad regime’s Air Force Intelligence Directorate, Salama Mohammad Salama.” The network added that facial recognition software used on the image “provided a match of more than 99 percent with the man CNN met in the Damascus prison cell.”

While acknowledging that Verify-Sy was the first to positively identify the prisoner as Salama, CNN also noted that Salama’s “current whereabouts are unknown” after rebel guards handed him over to the Red Crescent, who said he’d been returned to relatives in Damascus.