‘Freed prisoner’ in CNN video revealed to be ex-Assad regime ‘torturer’

On December 12, CNN aired the video of a Syrian prisoner being released from a jail following the fall of the authoritarian regime of Bashar Al Assad. Days later, the man featured in the video was revealed to be a former ‘regime torturer’.

An investigation by the local fact-checking organisation Verify-Sy identified him as Salama Mohamad Salama, a former first lieutenant in Syria’s Air Force Intelligence who had been imprisoned for corruption.

The video dated December 11 featured CNN’s chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, leading her cameraman into a cell in a Damascus prison.

Moments into the footage, the camera focuses on a man lying under in a blanket in a dimly lit cell. He gets up as soon as an opposition soldier cautiously lifts up the corner of the cover, seemingly unaware of the regime’s collapse.

“In nearly twenty years as a journalist, this was one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed,” Ward said, sharing the link to the report on her X account.

Yet, despite the sensational framing of the broadcast, with a headline reading “CNN on the scene in the moment Syrian prisoner is freed,” the video was met with widespread scepticism on social media.

Users were sceptical about the man’s relatively healthy appearance, which contrasted heavily with the recently circulated images of released detainees – scared and emaciated with tell-tale signs of physical and mental trauma.

His apparent detachment from the chaos surrounding the release of other prisoners only added to the suspicion, with some dismissing the scene as staged, and others going so far as to describe it as an “Oscar-worthy performance” by Ward herself.

Days later, Verify-Sy identified the man as ‘Salama Mohamad Salama’.

According to the fact checker, Salama had been imprisoned for corruption for less than a month.

Citing local residents, the Verify-Sy report said he was involved in extortion as well as forcing people into becoming Assad informants on duty while managing security checkpoints in Homs.

The fact-checker alleges that Salama, who Verify-Sy said was widely known as ‘Abu Hamza’, tortured and killed civilians on duty, having played a role in the military operations in 2014 when the regime seized Homs from opposition forces at the end of a three-year-long siege.

“In addition to his violent past, residents testified that Abu Hamza has been attempting to garner sympathy since the fall of the regime, claiming he was ‘forced’ into committing his crimes,” the Verify-Sy’s publication reads.

CNN later confirmed that subsequent evidence corroborated the man's identity as Mohammad Salama.

The news outlet, however, added that it has not been able to confirm the allegations of torture against Salama.

Past CNN controversies

This isn’t the first time CNN’s reporting from conflict zones has led to controversy.

Clarissa Ward’s coverage in Palestine's Gaza also drew criticism when, in October 2023, she reported from the Israel-Gaza border, where she and her team appeared to be taking cover amid a barrage of rockets fired by Hamas.

At the time, many social media users accused the segment of dramatising the situation, describing it as an exaggerated performance aimed at ‘laundering support for the genocide’ while Israel was pounding civilian infrastructure in the Palestinian enclave.

“Anyone still taking her seriously after she pretended to be under Hamas rocket attack is special,” one user said on X following the report from the Syrian prison.