UPDATED: CNN‘s Clarissa Ward stated {that a} man recognized in her report as a prisoner below the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad, the deposed dictator, was the truth is an intelligence officer.
“We will affirm the actual identification of the person from our story final Wednesday as Salama Mohammed Salama,” Ward wrote on X.
Final week, Ward and her workforce visited a jail constructing on the Syrian air drive intelligence headquarters in Damascus as they looked for lacking American journalist Austin Tice. The go to to the jail was unannounced, in accordance with the community.
Once they entered the ability, they had been adopted by a guard, a Syrian insurgent. As they appeared round, they observed {that a} cell was locked from the skin, and requested the guard about whether or not there was anybody there. The guard shot the lock off the door, and the CNN crew adopted him inside.
The report confirmed a person contained in the cell, hiding below a blanket. He requested for water, which the CNN workforce offered to him. The person instructed them his title was Adel Ghurbal and that he was from Homs. He stated that he had been arrested three months in the past and had been in three completely different jails, and the report detailed how he was unaware of the overthrow of Assad. The humanitarian group Pink Crescent arrived quickly after and took the person away, and posted afterward social media that he had been dropped off at a relative’s home.
The report drew widespread consideration as a dramatic second after the autumn of the Assad regime.
However on Sunday, the positioning Confirm-Sy raised questions concerning the report, suggesting that he was the truth is Salama Mohammad Salama, also referred to as Abu Hamza, a primary lieutenant in Syrian Air Pressure Intelligence. “In accordance with locals, his latest incarceration—lasting lower than a month—was because of a dispute over profit-sharing from extorted funds with a higher-ranking officer,” Confirm-Sy reported. “This led to his detention in considered one of Damascus’s cells, as per neighborhood sources.” The location included photographs from the CNN report and Salameh in army uniform.
CNN stated at present that it obtained a photograph that confirmed the person’s actual identification. The community reported that native residents of Homs recognized the person as Salama, and that “he was identified for operating the Air Pressure Intelligence Directorate’s checkpoints within the metropolis and accused him of getting a status for extortion and harassment.”
A CNN spokesperson stated earlier at present, “Nobody aside from the CNN workforce was conscious of our plans to go to the jail constructing featured in our report that day. The occasions transpired as they seem in our movie. The choice to launch the prisoner featured in our report was taken by the guard – a Syrian insurgent. We reported the scene because it unfolded, together with what the prisoner instructed us, with clear attribution.”
CNN hooked up a word to on-line variations of its report, notifying viewers that it was investigating.
