CNN Says It Was Misled

CNN confirmed Monday evening that it was misled by a man who was freed from a Syrian prison last week while the network’s cameras were rolling, reports The Washington Post.

During a package filmed on Wednesday, CNN viewers watched as chief foreign correspondent Clarissa Ward — along with a security guard who is a member of the rebel forces that toppled Bashar al-Assad’s government — discovered a man who had been locked away in a prison cell, seemingly forgotten. The man, hidden under a blanket, was given water, told he was free to go and was walked out of the prison gripping Ward’s arm.

The man identified himself during the segment as “a civilian” named Adel Ghurbal, who was taken by the intelligence service from his home three months ago and interrogated. He seemed to be overwhelmed with emotion when told that Assad’s government had fallen.

But the network reported on Monday evening that the man’s name is actually Salama Mohammad Salama and that he served as a lieutenant in the Assad regime’s Air Force Intelligence Directorate.

While the man appears to have been imprisoned, “it’s unclear how or why Salama ended up in the Damascus jail, and CNN has not been able to reestablish contact with him,” the network said.

The CNN team discovered the man while scouring the prison for Austin Tice, the American journalist who was abducted while reporting in Syria in August 2012.

The segment had circulated on social media and was seen as a window into the Syrian people’s newfound grasp of freedom after decades of autocratic rule.