CNN, which continues to bleed viewers and struggle to remain solvent, claimed a man in Syria they helped free last week was a political prisoner of the Assad regime. However, the individual is now believed to be a notorious regime torturer who disguised himself to evade capture.

In a video that has gone viral online, CNN journalist Clarissa Ward and a camera crew—accompanied by a Syrian rebel solider—help escort a man identifying himself as Adel Ghurbal from a Damascus prison. According to Ghurbal, he had been imprisoned 90 days before the fall of the Syrian capital and was confined to a windowless cell. However, the man’s behavior appeared strange to many who viewed the video.

While Ghurbal claimed to have not seen sunlight in 90 days, he didn’t wince when outdoors in the sun again. Additionally, Ghurbal was well groomed for someone confined to a damp and dark cell for three months—his hair and fingernails appeared well-kept, and he showed no signs of torture commonly seen in other prisons freed by the rebels.

NOTORIOUS TORTURER.

However, analysis by the independent Syrian civil war fact checker Verify-Sy suggests that the prisoner’s real name is not Adel Ghurbal at all. Instead, the man in the video is actually believed to be Salama Mohammad Salama. A first lieutenant in Syrian Air Force intelligence, Salama is an alleged war criminal and one of the Assad regime’s top torturers, who would often extort prisoners for money in exchange for not torturing them.

According to local Damascus residents, Salama was confined in the prison for just a few weeks following a dispute with a superior over dividing the extortion money.

CNN says it is aware that the man in its video may have given a false identity and is investigating the matter.

WATCH:

“Syria is free.”

Extraordinary moment as @clarissaward and her team witness a Syrian prisoner freed from a secret prison in Damascus.

Left alone for days without food, water or light, the man was unaware Bashar al-Assad’s regime had fallen. pic.twitter.com/ZAnGiBlLON

— CNN International PR (@cnnipr) December 11, 2024

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