CNN helped this Syrian prisoner "escape" ... Turns out he might

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You may have seen this clip from CNN during the aftermath of the fall of Syria last week:

The CNN story last week showed [journalist Clarissa] Ward and a camera crew, escorted by a rebel fighter, visiting a former Syrian air force intelligence headquarters in Damascus and freeing the man who was found under a blanket locked in a windowless cell.

This looks pretty heroic of CNN, right?

That is, until you realize who the man is:

Yup, that’s Salama Mohammad Salama, an alleged war criminal.

The New York Post tells us Salama is “a first lieutenant in Syrian Air Force Intelligence with a long history of alleged war crimes.”

The prisoner CNN helped free from a secret facility in Syria was actually a notorious member of Bashar al-Assad’s forces known to torture those who refused to pay him off, according to a shocking local fact check.

The network went viral last week with footage of the startled prisoner being led from the prison by journalist Clarissa Ward, who called it ‘one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed’ in her 20 years of reporting.

But ‘independent and unbiased’ fact-checkers Verify-Sy published a detailed report Sunday saying that the seemingly innocent prisoner was actually Salama Mohammad Salama.

CNN acknowledged this mix-up and assured us that this was not a fabricated story, but a simple mistake.

‘We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given a false identity,’ CNN acknowledged to The Post. ‘We are continuing our reporting into this and the wider story.’