The video has been scrutinized, with a report claiming the man is actually an infamous intelligence officer in the Assad government.

CNN told the New York Post that it was aware the prisoner may have falsified his identity and was investigating his background.

“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 the 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,” it concluded.

The Washington Examiner reached out to CNN for comment.

On Wednesday, CNN posted a video titled, “CNN Reporter Documents a Shocking Moment of Finding a Prisoner Held in a Secret Syrian Jail, Unaware of Assad’s Overthrow.” In the video, reporter Clarissa Ward is escorted through an Assad regime prison, in which she stumbles across a man hiding under a blanket. He identifies himself as a civilian who has been in solitary confinement for three months, claiming he was abandoned four days ago without food or water. Ward and a gunman helped escort him out into the sun.

“In nearly twenty years as a journalist, this was one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed,” Ward said in a post on X.

However, viewers quickly voiced suspicion about the video. For one, the supposedly abandoned prisoner was remarkably clean and well-groomed for someone in solitary confinement for three months, and he looked healthy despite apparently being without food or water for four days.

Rebels had reportedly seized the Mezzeh Air Force Intelligence headquarters in Sweida, where the prisoner was found, roughly five days before the video. He was the only prisoner left, something many found implausible.

“The prison has been liberated for days now; several Syrian reporters were there already – families have come to look for the remains of their family members – prisons were searched by search teams send by the Turkish government; yet somehow all of them ignored this 1 prison cell? – with exactly 1 prisoner inside despite this being a prison cell for multiple prisoners?” one Kurdish activist pointed out.

When he was brought out into the sun, after he claimed that he hadn’t seen it in three months, he freely looked up into the sun without flinching. His behavior also vacillated between fear and calmness.

Verify-Sy, a Syrian fact-checker, published an in-depth report on the video, finding that “Adel Gharbal” was actually “Salama Mohammad Salama,” not a civilian but rather a first lieutenant in Syrian Air Force Intelligence.

Locals told the outlet that Salama manned a checkpoint in a neighborhood in Homs, where he was known for abusing his position. The abuses of his position were the real reason for his imprisonment when he got into a dispute with another high-ranking officer over the sharing of extorted funds, they alleged. He was imprisoned for less than a month over the dispute.

Salama was also alleged to have taken part in military operations around Homs in 2014, where he killed and tortured civilians.

“As Syrians first and journalists second, we must ask: Did CNN deliberately mislead its audience to rehabilitate Abu Hamza’s image, or did it fall victim to misinformation?” the report asked.