The prisoner whose release was captured by Clarissa Ward was actually a regime intelligence officer, according to a local fact check group.
Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks, a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we look at new questions around CNN’s “remarkable” reporting in Syria, and we cover more media misses.
The CNN Story That Was Too Good to Be True
Last week, CNN bragged it had obtained “remarkable” footage of “a Syrian prisoner left behind in a secret prison, alone and unaware the Assad regime was no more.”
International correspondent Clarissa Ward led viewers inside a secret Syrian jail for the incredible moment the man, who identified himself as Adel Ghurbal and said he was taken from his home in Homs to the Damascus jail, learned the regime had been toppled.
Ward and her team were visiting the prison while searching for missing U.S. journalist Austin Tice. The correspondent, led by a rebel guard, found the man in the only cell that remained locked in the prison. The guard shot the door open to find him under a blanket in the windowless cell. The prisoner explained he had been arrested three months prior and interrogated by intelligence officials about his phone contacts.
Ward called it “one of the most extraordinary moments” she had witnessed in two decades of reporting.
But now, it appears the story may have been too good to be true: CNN is investigating whether the prisoner gave a false identity and was actually a member of Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
Syrian fact-checking organization Verify-Sy noted the prisoner appeared “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.”
He also “did not flinch or blink even when gazing up at the sky,” though he claimed to have not seen sunlight for three months.
The details led to skepticism from the local fact-checkers, who said the story unraveled when they could not find a record of an Adel Ghurbal in the region.
The group says the man’s real name is Salama Mohammad Salama. According to Verify-Sy, he is a first lieutenant in Syrian Air Force Intelligence who managed several security checkpoints in Homs. He allegedly killed civilians during the Syrian civil war in 2014 and detained or tortured numerous young men on fabricated charges.
The man, who was involved in theft, extortion, and coercing residents into becoming regime informants, had been jailed less than a month over a dispute over the profits from extorted funds with a higher-ranking officer, locals told the fact-checker.
CNN confirmed in a statement to National Review that it is investigating the man’s identity.
“No one other than the CNN team was aware of our plans to visit the prison building featured in our report that day,” a CNN spokesperson said. “The events transpired as they appear in our film. The decision to release the prisoner featured in our report was taken by the guard – a Syrian rebel.”
“We reported the scene as it unfolded, including what the prisoner told us, with clear attribution. 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,” the spokesperson added.
Headline Fail of the Week
This week’s off-the-wall headline comes from an unsurprising source. The Daily Mail, apparently looking for original reporting angles on the 26-year-old gunman accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, reports, “Doctors reveal how a lack of sex can turn men into killers.”
“Doctors have raised the prospect that sexual frustration may have played a role in the healthcare CEO’s assassination — as speculation swirls about the alleged killer’s motive,” the story begins.
It explains that Luigi Mangione “is said to have been unable to have sex because of a debilitating lower back injury that caused him constant pain.”
“Psychiatrists say that sexual frustration can leave someone with feelings of anger and frustration over being unable to find a partner, which they blame society for. Violent attacks may be carried out as an emotional ‘release,’” the article explains, before going on to cite several other attackers who may have been motivated in part by their sexual frustration, including Matthew Crooks, who attempted to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump.
Media Misses
-ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos has agreed to a settlement with president-elect Donald Trump over his defamation lawsuit against the network. The suit concerned comments Stephanopoulos made in March in which he incorrectly claimed Trump had been found liable for rape by a jury. ABC will pay $15 million as a charitable contribution to a “Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff, as Presidents of the United States of America have established in the past,” along with another $1 million for Trump’s attorney fees. The network will also issue a statement of regret on the online version of the story.
-Representative Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.), who was ousted in a Democratic primary earlier this year, is not going out quietly. He attracted attention online for a rant directed to “white people” after a jury found Daniel Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely, a black, homeless man.
-Another day, another Trump–Hitler comparison from the mainstream media. This one comes from The View co-host Ana Navarro, who attempts to explain Trump’ recognition as Time magazine’s person of the year by noting other villainous figures had received the recognition as well.
“It’s not always been great people that have been on the cover of Time, right? It’s been people like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler and [Nikita] Khrushchev and [Ayatollah] Khomeini, so he’s in that kind of company, as well,” she said.
-Former CNN host Don Lemon didn’t take the news as well, however. “Is this a joke? Did we get something wrong? Did someone scam us? Are we sure about this, producers? There is a convicted felon on the cover of Time Magazine as the Person of the Year. Maybe we’re being scammed. Did someone put out a fake tweet or something about this? I don’t know,” Lemon said in a TikTok live.