(MENAFN- Live Mint) A man who was recently freed by the rebels from a Damascus jai lwas reportedly a former intelligence officer of the ousted Syrian Regime
The man was found while the news outlet was looking for missing U.S. journalist Austin Tice. Accompanied by a rebel guard, the CNN team, while shooting the investigative video, came across a cell in a Damascus jail that was padlocked from the outside. The guard shot off the lock, revealing the man alone under a blanket.
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When he was questioned, the man identified himself as Adel Ghurbal from the central Syrian city of Homs. He revealed that he was kept in a cell for three months and this was the third cell where he had been confined. He said he was being held in a jail that had been run by the Syrian air force's intelligence services and claimed he was not aware that the Assad regime had fallen
Later, an image obtained by CNN confirms the man's identity as Salama Mohammad Salama, a lieutenant in Assad's Air Force Intelligence Directorate.
A resident of Homs' Bayada neighborhood gave CNN a photo of the man in what appears to be a government office. Facial recognition software matched it with over 99% certainty to the man found in the Damascus prison cell.
Syria's new rulers step up engagement with the world
Syria's new rulers stepped up engagement on Tuesday with countries that deemed ousted president Bashar al-Assad a pariah, with the French flag raised at the embassy for the first time in over a decade.
Assad fled Syria just over a week ago, as his forces abandoned tanks and other equipment in the face of a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
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The collapse of Assad's rule on December 8 stunned the world and sparked celebrations around Syria and beyond, after his crackdown on democracy protests in 2011 led to one of the deadliest wars of the century.
Rooted in Syria's branch of Al-Qaeda, HTS is proscribed by several Western governments as a terrorist organisation, though it has sought to moderate its rhetoric and pledged to protect the country's religious minorities.
Turkey and Qatar, which backed the anti-Assad opposition, have reopened embassies in Damascus, while US and British officials have launched communications with Syria's new leaders.
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