Extraordinary video shows the moment a CNN reporter discovered a prisoner who had been locked in one of the Assad regime’s secret facilities for three months — and was unaware that the dictator’s rule had finally come to an end.
While searching for traces of missing US journalist Austin Tice at a former Syrian Air Force intelligence headquarters in Damascus, CNN’s Clarissa Ward and her rebel fighter escorts noticed one windowless cell remained locked.
A soldier blows off the lock, and they enter an empty cell with what appeared at first to be just a blanket lying in the corner, footage from the network shows.
Adel Ghurbal sees the sky for the first time in three months. CNN“It moved!” Ward exclaims. “Is someone there or is it just a blanket?”
An armed soldier pulls on the blanket, dramatically revealing a haggard man who immediately sits up and holds up his hands in fright.
“I’m a civilian,” he says in Arabic.
The prisoner, who later identified himself as Adel Ghurbal, tells his rescuers he is from the city of Homs and has been locked up in the cell for three months.
Ghurbal is clearly agitated and frightened and clutches hard onto Ward’s arm as she repeatedly tells him “you’re ok” as he’s handed a bottle of water to drink from.
“Don’t be afraid,” the soldier tells him as they walk outside the prison. “You are free.”
Ghurbal breaks down after a rebel solder tells him Syria is “free.” CNN“My God, the light!” Ghurbal says after seeing the sun and sky for the first time in months. The journalist and soldier sit him down in a chair and he pleads with them to stay with them, his body shaking.
“For three months I didn’t know anything about my family. I didn’t hear anything about my children,” Ghurbal tells them.
Ghurbal had apparently been left for dead. He had no food or water for at least four days when his captors fled Damascus as rebels took over the capital city and Assad ran off to Moscow.
Ghurbal was then given a plate of food but could barely lift the fork to his mouth, the video shows. He wretches as he tries to swallow with his body unable to handle it.
“I’m shaking. My face is shaking,” he says.
Ghurbal holds tightly onto CNN reporter Clarissa Ward’s arm as he’s led out of the prison. CNNGhurbal is then given the incredible news that Assad’s government has fallen. A soldier tells him there is no more government army — and no more prisons.
“Are you serious?” Ghurbal, incredulous, asks.
“Syria is free,” the soldier assures him.
He smiles, embraces the soldier and kisses him on the forehead.
Ghurbal was ripped from his home by officers from Assad’s feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, he explains. The officers asked him about his phone and grilled him about the names of alleged terrorists and took him to Damascus, where they beat him.
Ghurbal holds his arms up after he’s found under the blanket. CNNA paramedic arrives to assist and Ghurbal goes into shock, shaking profusely, video shows.
“Everything’s ok,” the EMT tells him. “You are safe. Don’t be afraid anymore. Everything you are afraid of is gone.”
Tens of thousands of prisoners have been freed from Syria’s prison system as rebel forces stormed towards Damascus.
“In nearly twenty years as a journalist, this was one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed,” Ward tweeted about the experience.
Editor’s note: Adel Ghurbal’s true identity has since been revealed by fact-checkers Verify-Sy as Salama Mohammad Salama, a first lieutenant in Syrian air force intelligence with a long history of alleged war crimes.
