CNN reporter who interviewed detainee leaving Damascus prison admits he was a former intelligence officer

“One of the most extraordinary moments (she had) witnessed.” This is how CNN journalist Clarissa Ward reacted on December 11 after experiencing live, during a video report, the release of a detainee presented as a civilian in a Damascus prison.

This Monday, December 16, the journalist confirmed via “the true identity of man (…) is Salama Mohammed Salama”. This detainee was in reality a former lieutenant in the intelligence services of the Syrian Air Force, having committed abuses, a revelation which had been made a little earlier by a counter-investigation by the Syrian fact-checking media Check it out .

“Clean, well-groomed and in good physical health”

After the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, the Anglo-American journalist went on December 11, 2024 to the prison most symbolic of the regime's abuses near Damascus and discovered a suspicious form in one of the cells. Accompanied by a group of armed people, the journalist then sees a detainee and tells him that the regime of the Syrian dictator has fallen. Then follow scenes where the man in shock looks towards the sky and grabs onto the journalist. The prisoner introduces himself as Adil Hurbal, a civilian from the city of Homs and arrested three months ago by the Syrian military intelligence services, the Mukhabarat.

However, the fact-checking site Verify-Sy claims that Adil Hurbal lied about his identity and the conditions of his imprisonment. Several inconsistent details were highlighted by the site such as the fact that he is not dazzled by daylight after three months of incarceration and that he is the only inmate in an empty prison. Syrian detention centers are known for their extreme harshness towards detainees. However, the man appears “clean, well-groomed and in good physical health, without visible injuries or signs of torture”although it presents some tremors.

The man practiced torture on young men

In reality, his name is Salama Mohammad Salama and was a first lieutenant in the Syrian Air Force Intelligence. He headed several security posts in the city of Homs and was allegedly involved in “theft, extortion and maneuvers aimed at forcing residents to become informants”.

According to testimonies from residents collected by the Syrian media, he had been imprisoned for less than a month for “a dispute with a superior officer regarding the sharing of profits from extorted funds”. Check it out also reveals that he participated in operations on several fronts in Homs in 2014 and practiced torture against young men for no particular reason.