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.
Clean clothes, perfectly groomed, and perfectly manicured nails. Looking good for a prisoner who was supposedly confined and starved in a prison cell for months by Assad who didn’t know that the regime had fallen and that the prison had been emptied. CNN never fails to deliver. pic.twitter.com/AIaxnvLrqt
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 13, 2024
Clarissa Ward, an American journalist, is facing accusations of fabricating a scene involving the rescue of prisoners in Syria.
It has been reported that the prison she claimed to have discovered prisoners in had already been cleared by HTS, with families of former prisoners… pic.twitter.com/USfyfTfOX5
— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) December 12, 2024
Ward followed up on her initial report, perhaps because of the controversy, to show the man “reunited with a family member.”
The man from our report, reunited with a family member. https://t.co/jQ8om9APzM
— Clarissa Ward (@clarissaward) December 14, 2024
Did Ward attend the Anderson Cooper reporter masterclass?
This was when. Anderson Cooper sat in a puddle to make his viewers believe he was in a flood zone. pic.twitter.com/Q5Q1dihe0r
— Joie Graham (@joie73) December 8, 2024
The identity of the “freed prisoner” has not yet been confirmed.
