In a dramatic viral video, CNN correspondent Clarissa Ward, looking for signs of captured US journalist Austin Tice in a Syrian prison, instead found a man huddled under a blanket who claimed he'd been imprisoned for months and had no idea President Bashar al-Assad's regime had collapsed. Now, however, a local fact-checking group is reporting that man (who identified himself to reporters as Adel Ghurbal) is actually a torturer from that very regime. Local residents apparently identified the man as Salama Mohammad Salama, or Abu Hamza, as he was known in the area, Mediaite reports. The fact-checking group, Verify-Sy, says there is no record of anyone named Adel Ghurbal in the local area.
Ward's post on X has since been updated with that added context, and CNN added an explanatory note to the end of its video and issued a statement saying, "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." Verify-Sy says Salama is a first lieutenant in Syrian air force intelligence who engaged in theft, extortion, and torture, and that he was actually imprisoned due to a financial dispute with another regime official regarding sharing money they'd extorted. Per the New York Post, Verify-Sy points out that he is "well-groomed" with no signs of torture, injury, or ill health in the video. (More Syria stories.)
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