The sequence, seemingly poignant, was in reality misleading. The American channel CNN admitted, Monday, December 16, to having been abused by the man at the heart of a shocking report showing the release by the rebels of a detainee in a secret prison in Damascus, held by the intelligence services of the Syrian Air Force. In this sequence, filmed and broadcast Wednesday by the 24-hour news channel, he was found in a locked cell in these otherwise deserted places, by a rebel fighter and by reporter Clarissa Ward. The video exceeded one million views in just a few days on YouTube.
After suspicions about the authenticity of this sequence, CNN finally declared Monday evening, in an article, that this man had given a false identity: he was “a former intelligence officer of the fallen Syrian regime, according to local residents, and not an ordinary citizen imprisoned, as he had claimed.” The witness had in fact presented himself as a “civil” originally from Homs, named Adil Hurbal. He assured, in front of the CNN camera, that he had been arrested by the intelligence services because of the contents of his phone, and that he had been detained for three months. “The man also said he was unaware of the fall of the Assad regime”specifies CNN.
The Syrian fact-checking media Verify-Sy was the first to reveal the real identity of the ex-detainee on Sunday. Based on testimonies from residents of the al-Bayadah neighborhood in Homs, where the soldier officiated, the media revealed that it was Salama Mohammed Salama, also known as Abou Hamza, first lieutenant of the services of Air Force Intelligence, in whose prison he was discovered.
The Syrian media also broadcast on Monday evening an old photo of Salama Mohammed Salama in full military uniform, sitting at what appears to be his office. The Verify-Sy team has “verified the authenticity of the image, ruling out any possibility that it had been manipulated using artificial intelligence.”
CNN confirms the conclusions of the Syrian media based on a photo, obtained from a resident of Homs, whose description resembles that shared by Verify-Sy. “Facial recognition software provided a more than 99% match to the man CNN met in the Damascus prison cell. The photo shows him sitting at a desk, apparently in military fatigues”details the channel. Since the revelations about his identity, Salama Mohammed Salama remains untraceable and unreachable, according to CNN.
According to Verify-Sy, this soldier from the Assad regime's army is accused by families of victims and ex-detainees of having arbitrarily detained, tortured and executed Syrian civilians. Residents of the neighborhood where he worked claim that he was not incarcerated for any opposition to power, but because of a dispute with one of his superiors over the sharing of money resulting from abuses.
