CNN may have been duped by a so-called “hidden prisoner” from a Syrian jail that one news agency claims is actually a first lieutenant in the Syrian Air Force Intelligence.
During a segment, CNN’s Clarissa Ward and a rebel fighter uncovered a prisoner who appeared to be still unaware of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.
UPDATE: CNN has since said the network is investigating the man’s background further.
“No one other than the CNN team was aware of our plans to visit the prison building featured in our report that day. The events transpired as they appear in our film,” CNN said in a statement. “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 statement concluded.
The Verify-SY news agency – which claims to be a media platform identifying false news and correcting it – is identifying the “prisoner” as a Syrian officer who is believed to have killed civilians and detained and tortured young men in Homs. His posing as a prisoner, the organization tweeted, “seems to be trying to rehabilitate his image.”
CNN captured the moment Ward found the man, who was cloaked in a blanket in a locked cell of an emptied prison.
“We were looking to do a story about the tens of thousands of Syrians who have vanished into Assad’s dungeons, and particularly also about one American journalist, Austin Tice, who was disappeared,” Ward later reported on CNN.
Ward was shown entering the cell after a guard shot off the lock.
“Is there someone there?” Ward asks multiple times. The man emerged from beneath the cover with his hands raised.
A CNN translation said the man claimed he had been in the cell for three months.
“You’re OK, you’re OK,” Ward tells him, assisting him out into the open and into a vehicle.
Social media quickly questioned the scenario.
