‘Just absolutely remarkable report,’ Jake Tapper said after Clarissa Ward helped free a prisoner who killed and tortured actual civilians
CNN hosts spent days praising their colleague Clarissa Ward for helping free a Syrian man from a notorious prison before learning the “civilian” was really a Bashar al-Assad lieutenant who tortured and killed actual civilians.
Across four days, the network spent 56 minutes gushing over its coverage before the Syrian fact-checking group Verify-Sy revealed the error Sunday, according to Newsbusters.
“Another just absolutely remarkable report,” anchor Jake Tapper said Dec. 11. “CNN’s Clarissa Ward in Damascus doing vital, vital journalism. Thank you so much.”
“Just an incredible story and incredible reporting by Ward,” host Sara Sidner said Dec. 12. “Also such a moment of humanity in a place where we have seen so much death and so much carnage.”
“It really was something to see,” John Berman agreed.
Ward, CNN’s chief international correspondent, searched a secret Damascus prison on Wednesday following Assad’s Dec. 8 overthrow, leading to a “startling discovery when a rebel fighter uncovered a hidden prisoner still unaware of Assad’s ouster,” according to the outlet.
The freed prisoner identified himself as Adel Gharbal, a civilian from Homs who had been confined for three months, and acted confused and frightened. He clutched onto Ward, who consoled him, gave him water, and helped him walk out of the prison.
“You’re okay,” she told him on air as they walked. “In nearly twenty years as a journalist, this was one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed,” Ward added in a Dec. 11 X post.
Anderson Cooper echoed Tapper’s praise, calling Ward’s reporting “remarkable” and “stunning.” Kasie Hunt, another CNN host, described the segment as “just remarkable” and a “stunning discovery.”
Verify-Sy subsequently identified the man as Salama Mohammad Salama, a first lieutenant in Assad’s Syrian Air Force Intelligence who had been imprisoned less than one month earlier. Salama, according to Verify-Sy, was stationed at a checkpoint in Al-Bayyada, an area infamous for its abuses, and tortured young men without cause or on fabricated charges, sometimes simply because of their appearance.
CNN and Ward on Monday independently confirmed Salama’s identity, describing him as a “former intelligence officer with the deposed Syrian regime.”
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