CNN may have been duped by a so-called 'hidden prisoner' from a Syrian prison, who one news agency claims is actually a first lieutenant in the Syrian Air Force intelligence service.
During one segment, CNN's Clarissa Ward and a rebel fighter discovered a prisoner who seemed still unaware of the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
But now the Verify-SY news agency – which claims to be a media platform that identifies and corrects false news – is identifying the “prisoner” as a Syrian officer believed to have killed civilians and detained and tortured young men in Homs. His pose as a prisoner, the organization tweeted, “seems to be trying to rehabilitate his image.”
TheWrap has contacted CNN for clarification.
CNN captured the moment Ward found the man wrapped in a blanket in a locked cell of a emptied prison.
“We wanted to make a story about the tens of thousands of Syrians who disappeared into Assad's dungeons, and especially about an American journalist, Austin Tice, who disappeared,” Ward later reported on CNN.
Ward was shown entering the cell after a guard shot the lock.
“Is anyone there?” Ward asks several times. The man came out from under the lid with his hands up.
According to a CNN translation, the man claimed he had already been in jail for three months.
“You're doing well, you're doing well,” Ward tells him as he helps him outside and into a vehicle.
Social media quickly questioned the scenario.
The post Syrian Prisoner Released by CNN's Clarissa Department, May Have Been an Intelligence Officer in Hiding appeared first on TheWrap.
