CNN Helped Release a Syrian 'Prisoner' Who Turned Out to Be a Notorious Torturer

A story last week on CNN about a Syrian "prisoner" who the network claimed had been held for years and that correspondent Clarissa Ward called one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed” in her 20 years as a journalist turns out to have been a notorious torturer for the Assad regime.

He told CNN his name was "Adel Gharbal" from Homs and claimed he was arrested three months earlier after his phone had been searched. He was taken to Damascus, he says, and thrown in prison. He claims not to have seen sunlight for three months when the CNN crew released him.

The Syrian fact-checking site Verify-Sy debunked the story in 48 hours, identifying the "prisoner" as Salama Mohammad Salama, AKA "Abu Hamza," a first lieutenant in Syrian Air Force Intelligence known in the city of Homs as being in charge of several checkpoints in the city.

The opportunity for theft, graft, and extortion at these checkpoints is well known, and residents say Salama profited enormously from his activities. He also engaged routinely in torture to get what he wanted.

Verify-Sy did CNN's job for it, pointing out several problems with "Adel Gharbal's" story.

The man, hidden under a blanket despite the gunshots used to break his cell lock, claimed he had not seen sunlight for three months. However, his reaction to the light did not match such a claim—he did not flinch or blink even when gazing up at the sky, seemingly overjoyed at his newfound "freedom."

Despite the purported harsh treatment of detainees in secret prisons, Gharbal appeared clean, well-groomed, and physically healthy, with no visible injuries or signs of torture—an incongruous portrayal of someone allegedly held in solitary confinement in the dark for 90 days.

Clarissa Ward, whose presence in Damascus was reportedly tied to her search for any trace of missing American journalist Austin Tice, did not convincingly address why the prison was empty of other detainees, leaving "Adel Gharbal" as the sole prisoner. Gharbal alternated between trembling in fear and behaving calmly, raising further questions about the report’s authenticity.

Salama had actually been in prison. He was jailed, according to local residents, "due to a dispute over profit-sharing from extorted funds with a higher-ranking officer." He was in jail for less than a month.

“We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given a false identity,” CNN admitted to The New York Post. “We are continuing our reporting into this and the wider story.”

For more than a decade, Salama has terrorized the people of Homs.

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.

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 team also learned that he deactivated his social media accounts and changed his phone number, presumably to erase evidence of his involvement in armed activities and war crimes.

Salama has vanished thanks to CNN's eagerness to tell a dramatic story that wasn't true. Even minimal fact-checking and a healthy dose of curiosity about his condition would have uncovered the truth about this man. That CNN made no effort to do so speaks to the decrepit state of major journalism.