CNN investigates claim man ‘rescued’ from Syrian jail was part of Assad’s forces

CNN is investigating the identity of a man the US broadcaster showed being rescued from a Syrian jail as he may have given a “false identity”.

The investigation was launched amid claims he was a member of Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

The man said his name was Adel Ghurbal and he’d been taken from the city Homs to the Syrian capital by the intelligence services.Credit: CNN

The man, found under a blanket in a prison in Damascus by Clarissa Ward, the broadcaster’s chief international correspondent, claimed he had been arrested three months ago and interrogated about his phone contacts.

The footage was described as “remarkable” by CNN’s head of communication at the time, praising Ward and her team for finding “a Syrian prisoner left behind in a secret prison, alone and unaware the Assad regime was no more”.

He gave his name as Adel Ghurbal and said he was taken from his home in the city of Homs to the Syrian capital by the intelligence services.

Verify-Sy, a Syrian fact-checking organisation, later claimed that his real name was Salama Mohammad Salama and that he was a first lieutenant in Syrian air force intelligence.

He managed several security checkpoints in Homs and was involved in theft, extortion and coercing residents into becoming regime informants, it claimed.

Verify-Sy also alleged the man had killed civilians, detained or tortured numerous young men on fabricated charges, and taken part in military operations in 2014, when Assad’s forces seized Homs from Syrian rebels following a three-year siege.

Locals are said to have told the organisation that his imprisonment, which lasted less than a month, stemmed from a dispute over the profits from extorted funds with a higher-ranking officer.

A CNN spokesman said: “We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given a false identity. We are continuing our reporting into this and the wider story.”

The spokesman continued: “No one other than the CNN team was aware of our plans to visit the prison building featured in our report that day.

“The events transpired as they appear in our film. The decision to release the prisoner featured in our report was taken by the guard – a Syrian rebel.

“We reported the scene as it unfolded, including what the prisoner told us, with clear attribution.

“The CNN reporting team had visited the prison, located at the Syrian air force intelligence headquarters in Damascus, while searching for Austin Tice, a missing US journalist. It is understood that nobody at the facility was aware that they were coming. A Syrian rebel guard shot open the man’s cell door when the team noticed it was the only one that remained locked, where he was discovered under a blanket.

The Telegraph, London

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