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CNN’s Clarissa Ward “rescues” victim of Assad regime./Image: Video screenshot.

The Gateway Pundit reported on the sudden, dramatic takeover of the Syria Arabic Republic by opposition rebels with ties to ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Long-time ruler Bashar al Assad and his family fled the capital, Damascus, for Moscow, leaving orders for the military to surrender and to the officials to enact a peaceful transition of power to the radical Islamists.

Startling images have emerged of thousands of prisoners being released from Assad’s infamous torture prisons, some being freed from a labyrinth of underground cells in unimaginable conditions.

However, some of CNN’s reportinghas been criticized, with questions raised on the prisons  regarding its authenticity.

While searching a secretive prison, CNN’s Clarissa Ward appeared to discover “a hidden prisoner still unaware of Assad’s ouster.”

Watch:

But the veracity of the video has been called into question.  Viewers note the “prisoner” has a perfectly groomed beard, clean and trimmed nails, and appears to be bathed and fed.

Despite Ward’s assertion that he had been “in a windowless cell,” he does not seem to struggle with adjusting to the sun as he is led away from the prison.

Ward followed up on her initial report, perhaps because of the controversy, to show the man “reunited with a family member.”

Did Ward attend the Anderson Cooper reporter masterclass?

The identity of the “freed prisoner” has not yet been confirmed.