His rescue had moved the whole world, but he allegedly gave a false identity to pass himself off as a victim.
The images went around the world last week. The man seemed to be the symbol of the terrible barbarity of Bashar al-Assad’s jails. He was, but not at all as he was presented to the public by the CNN report and the journalist Clarissa Ward who discovered him under a blanket in a Damascus prison. We saw him regain freedom and daylight with emotion on December 12.
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The man declared himself to be a civilian, “being taken from his home in the city of Homs, arrested and questioned about his telephone contacts”recalls the Daily Mail. He said he stayedyears food for four days before his captors fled when the rebels took Damascus. This would not be the case according to our colleagues who indicate that the Syrian fact-checking organization Verify-Sy assures that “The prisoner’s real name was Salama Mohammad Salama, a first lieutenant in the Syrian Air Force’s intelligence services, serving former President Assad”. A man who allegedly killed civilians and had several people arrested and tortured.
“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)
Residents of Homs recognized him and said that Salama was involved in “theft, extortion and attempts to force residents to become informants”. He would have ended up in prison “for less than a month following a dispute with a superior over money he allegedly extorted”.
After his discovery by the journalist and the CNN team, the man was taken care of by Red Crescent rescuers who helped him find his family. Many questions remain about the exact circumstances in which this man was discovered and his meeting with the CNN team.
Canada
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