CNN Admits Reporter Duped: Assad ‘Victim’ Found In Syria Prison Was Regime Intel Officer

The long and colorful history of major media promotion of false, government-serving narratives has a new chapter. 

Last week, CNN aired a melodramatic report from reporter Clarissa Ward that was supposed to show a CNN crew amazingly rescuing a victim of the Assad regime from the bowels of a Damascus dungeon. After days of mounting skepticism and pointed questions ricocheting across social media, alternative new sites and here at ZeroHedge, CNN now says the “rescued” man was actually a regime intelligence officer, and there are reports that he himself perpetrated crimes against civilians.  

The man identified himself as Adel Ghurbai, and said he lived in the central Syrian city of Homs. However, over the weekend, the self-described Syrian fact-checking site Verify-Sy said he was actually Salama Mohammad Salama, aka “Abu Hamza”, an infamous and cruel first lieutenant in Syrian Air Force Intelligence: 

Abu Hamza reportedly managed several security checkpoints in Homs and was involved in theft, extortion, and coercing residents into becoming informants. According to locals, his recent incarceration—lasting less than a month—was due to a dispute over profit-sharing from extorted funds with a higher-ranking officer. This led to his detention in one of Damascus’s cells, as per neighborhood sources. 

…

Despite his seemingly innocent and composed demeanor in the CNN report, Salama has a grim history. He participated in military operations on several fronts in Homs in 2014, killed civilians, and was responsible for detaining and torturing numerous young men in the city without cause or on fabricated charges. Many were targeted simply for refusing to pay bribes, rejecting cooperation, or even for arbitrary reasons like their appearance. These details were corroborated by families of victims and former detainees who spoke with Verify-Sy.

On Monday, CNN posted a report — written by Tim Lister and Eyad Kourdi but not Ward — revealing the network had been duped. Unsurprisingly, the rolling ratings disaster that is CNN stopped short of taking responsibility for its failure. CNN did credit Verify-Sy for first reporting the man’s apparent real identity, which CNN corroborated with its own canvassing of residents in the Bayada neighborhood of Homs. Considering the crimes Salama is accused of, the CNN follow-up article ends on a darkly amusing note: “Salama’s current whereabouts are unknown.” Yes, Ward yearned to bask in the glory of saving a regime victim, only to be exposed as aiding and abetting the escape of an apparent regime criminal.  

This is so fake haha

To be expected from CNN

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— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) December 14, 2024

The original report from CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward immediately struck many as far too dramatic to be genuine. Ward and a CNN cameraman are being escorted through a Damascus prison by “rebel fighters” when they spot a blanket inside a cell. After one of the fighters shoots the lock off — off camera — they venture inside and nervously gaze at the blanket, not daring to touch it. Suspense mounts. Someone thinks they see movement! Another dramatic pause, and a man emerges from beneath, appearing to be scared and claiming ignorance that the Assad regime fell days earlier. Ward calls for water, and attempts to calm the man — though she herself sounds as emotionally-overcome as he is. Framing the man as a victim of the Assad regime, Ward concludes the report by declaring, “It is the end of a very dark chapter for him and for all of Syria.”

Those who scrutinized the 9-minute report found many things out of kilter. The man appears to be clean, well-dressed, well-fed and well-groomed — right down to his fingernails. He walks outside into the bright daylight and gazes at the sky without any need to adjust his eyes. If he thought prison guards were entering the cell, why does he hide under the blanket and ignore them — something that would seemingly invite punishment? That’s to say nothing of the fact that the visitors are speaking English. When he finally emerges, he displays fear — in the face of what is obviously a TV news crew. He springs up rather quickly for someone who was supposedly without food or water for the four days since the regime fell.  

Then there’s Ward’s over-the-top theatrics — which the cameraman seemed excessively intent on capturing. Where the prisoner’s behavior prompted skeptical smirks, Ward’s repeated hand-to-heart gesturing and breathless, melodramatic dialogue with the man elicited outright laughter. 

pic.twitter.com/FUIWfpmeca

— eddie (@eddie_nyc1) December 16, 2024

That’s not to say the entire thing was rigged with Ward as an active participant. It’s highly possible if not probable that Ward was duped, as her prison tour guides exploited her enormous sympathy to the regime-change campaign alongside a narcissistic urge to make herself part of a dramatic story. It’s also possible her escorts were themselves fooled by an accused villain looking to make his escape — which he did. 

Either way, it’s fair to say Ward’s utter humiliation sprang in no small part from her lack of objectivity. Her advocacy for regime change is well-documented, and she’d previously admitted to crossing the line that separates sober journalism from impassioned advocacy of US intervention against the Assad regime. In a 2021 appearance on former acting CIA director Michael Morrell’s podcast, Ward said: 

“I will cop to the fact that I think I crossed the line in Syria. I became so emotionally involved, and I was crushed by the US response and the US policy…I felt that there really wasn’t a strong US policy, that we had said ‘Assad must go’ and then we had done nothing to make him go.”  

Ward further revealed that she was so eager to see a more muscular US intervention that she bitterly contacted then-Obama adviser Ben Rhodes at his White House email address, writing, “Dear Ben, I hope you’re sleeping soundly as Aleppo burns. At least we have the Russians to sort it out.” 

This isn’t the first time that Ward looked like a high school drama queen. This October 2023 performance also struck many people as exaggerated if not staged outright for the camera: 

Stunned by CNN Clarissa Ward’s Oscar-worthy performance in ‘freeing’ a Syrian prisoner in a building that had been captured days earlier?

Here’s a reminder of when she faked being shot at by Hamas to manufacture consent for the Gaza genocide pic.twitter.com/kyh6GGiKoN

— Going Underground (@GUnderground_TV) December 12, 2024

Ward posted CNN’s confirmation of the “rescued” prisoner’s real identity…and received plenty of feedback:

This is a lousy retraction by all journalistic standards.

Not providing more context on the previously – very obviously – staged video, nor admitting any wrongdoing on the part of you and @CNN

— Youssef Kobo (@Youssef_Kobo) December 16, 2024

The crazy thing is that you’re the last one to realize that whole thing was staged. We all knew it was obviously fake.

— Scott Liewehr (@sliewehr) December 17, 2024

When 2 fake propagandists meet each other pic.twitter.com/mjuqyLw31t

— Arya – آریا (@AryJeay) December 17, 2024

Way to go. You weren’t the least bit curious as to why he was well groomed and not dirty?

— Burt Macklin (@BurtMaclin_FBI) December 16, 2024

.@clarissaward you and your CNN colleagues have promoted numerous deceptions in Syria, the region, and all over the world, from sniffing a “sarin” backpack to the 40 beheaded babies hoax to the viagra-fueled mass rape lie in Libya, to name a few.

Shut down CNN!… pic.twitter.com/oFkI4iVnuW

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) December 16, 2024

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— ALooterContinua (@ALooterContinua) December 17, 2024