Prisoner freed from prison by CNN journalists in Syria may actually be a former intelligence officer under Assad

The prisoner told reporters and emergency responders that his name was Adel Ghurbal, and he was from the city of Homs, located about 100 miles north of Damascus. The man also claimed that he was a simple civilian, who had been in prison for three months and that the establishment in the capital where he was locked up before his release was the third to which he had been taken. He was also unaware of the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, according to him. He was taken in by Red Crescent relief teams.

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Images that went around the world, before being called into question

CNN therefore shared these images and the information collected from the prisoner. The report went around the world. But in Homs, he above all raised questions. Residents quickly identified the prisoner as a Syrian intelligence officer, not a victim of the al-Assad regime. Syrian media also dug into the matter and the Verify-Sy site, a member platform of the international fact-checking network IFCN, said the same thing.

And this Monday, it was CNN which backtracked on the first information it had broadcast about this former detainee. “An image obtained by CNN on Monday now indicates the man’s true identity as a lieutenant in the Assad regime’s Air Force Intelligence Directorate, Salama Mohammad Salama.”wrote the channel in a new article. Journalists had access to a photo showing a man believed to be “Adel Ghurbal”, seated at a desk, in military uniform. “Facial recognition software provided more than 99% match to man CNN met in Damascus prison celldeclared our colleagues.

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Several Homs residents added that they recognized the individual as Salama Mohammad Salama, as he was known to man the Air Force Intelligence Directorate checkpoints in the city. Also known as Abu Hamza, he had a reputation as an extortionist and stalker, they said.

According to information from Verify-Sy, Salama Mohammad Salaman had been locked up for less than a month, following a dispute “with a senior officer over the sharing of profits from extorted funds.”