Syrian ‘Prisoner’ CNN Helped Free Was Actually Infamous Assad Regime Torturer

If you tuned in to CNN last week (which you probably didn’t) as the Assad regime fell in Syria, you might have seen Clarissa Ward arm-in-arm with a prisoner, leading him away from the jail towards freedom and safety.

He claimed his name was Adel Ghurbal and that he had been arrested by the government and thrown into a windowless cell for 3 months.

At the time, Ward said it was “one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed” in her two decades of reporting.

For reference, here’s that original clip:

"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

Yet, as it turns out, this prisoner might not have been exactly who he was claiming to be.

In fact, there are no records of an ‘Adel Ghurbal’ in the region.

You see, this ‘prisoner,’ who looked strangely healthy and well-groomed for a man who claimed to have been locked in a dark, windowless cell for months by an oppressive regime, was actually Salama Mohammad Salama — and he’s far from innocent.

Salama is a notorious member of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, known for torturing people among other crimes, including extortion and theft.

Way to go, CNN…

You can’t get much faker than this!

You CANNOT make this up. Not only was CNN’s Chief War Propagandist Clarissa Ward caught red-handed faking (AGAIN) the rescue of a fake prisoner in a fake prison in Syria, it turns out the man she “helped” was a top-level torturer for Assad.

This is the same network that called… pic.twitter.com/4Ri3KueumD

— Bad Hombre (@joma_gc) December 16, 2024

Clarissa Ward was forced to admit the truth on her X page:

We can confirm the real identity of the man from our story last Wednesday as Salama Mohammed Salamahttps://t.co/wb77EEMbnT

— Clarissa Ward (@clarissaward) December 16, 2024

Elon Musk reacted to the news on X:

!! https://t.co/h2C9BnpBoF

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2024

Megyn Kelly also said:

CNN has humiliated itself yet again. Having totally fallen for the lies of the “in shock” suffering civilian Clarissa Ward “rescued” from an Assad prison, it learned *from other news outlets* who were questioning the veracity of CNN’s report that… https://t.co/HFiZqN7uLM

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) December 16, 2024

CNN issued a report for their ‘mistake’ :

A man who was filmed by CNN being released by rebels from a Damascus jail was a former intelligence officer with the deposed Syrian regime, according to local residents, and not an ordinary citizen who had been imprisoned, as he had claimed.

CNN initially found the man while pursuing leads on the missing US journalist Austin Tice. In a video report, chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward and her team, accompanied by a rebel guard, came across a cell in a Damascus jail that was padlocked from the outside. The guard blew off the lock with a gun, and the man was found alone inside the cell, under a blanket.

When he emerged into the open air, the man appeared bewildered. Questioned by the rebel fighter who freed him, the man identified himself as Adel Ghurbal from the central Syrian city of Homs.

He claimed that he had been kept in a cell for three months, adding that it was the third prison where he had been confined. The man also said he was not aware that the Assad regime had fallen. He was being held in a jail that had been run by the Syrian air force’s intelligence services until the Assad regime collapsed.

An image obtained by CNN on Monday now points to the man’s real identity – said to be a lieutenant in the Assad regime’s Air Force Intelligence Directorate, Salama Mohammad Salama.

The New York Post dove deeper:

The prisoner CNN helped free from a secret facility in Syria was actually a notorious member of Bashar al-Assad’s forces known to torture those who refused to pay him off, according to a shocking local fact check.

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The network went viral last week with footage of the startled prisoner being led from the prison by journalist Clarissa Ward, who called it “one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed” in her 20 years of reporting.

But “independent and unbiased” fact-checkers Verify-Sy published a detailed report Sunday saying that the seemingly innocent prisoner was actually Salama Mohammad Salama — a first lieutenant in Syrian air force intelligence with a long history of alleged war crimes.

“We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given a false identity,” CNN acknowledged to The Post. “We are continuing our reporting into this and the wider story.”…

Known as “Abu Hamza,” Salama worked at several security checkpoints in Homs and was involved in theft, extortion and coercing residents into becoming informants for Assad, local residents told the fact-checkers.

He also killed civilians during the Syrian civil war in 2014 — and allegedly detained and tortured young men on bogus charges, many of whom refused to pay bribes, Verify-Sy reported.

Locals claim he was locked up in the prison where he was discovered for less than a month due to a dispute with a high-ranking officer over sharing the extorted money.

You have to wonder whether CNN is really so inept as to ‘free’ an infamous torturer, or if the whole thing was just a made-up scheme…

Which do you think it was?