A man who was filmed being released by rebels from a Damascus jail was revealed to be a former intelligence officer with the deposed Syrian regime, rather than an ordinary citizen as he had claimed. The man, initially identified as Adel Ghurbal from Homs, was found alone in a cell that had been padlocked from the outside. Upon emerging, he appeared bewildered and stated that he had been held in the cell for three months, unaware of the regime's fall.
Further investigation uncovered the man's true identity as Salama Mohammad Salama, a lieutenant in the Assad regime's Air Force Intelligence Directorate. A photograph obtained from a resident of Homs showed Salama in military clothing, matching the man found in the prison cell with over 99 percent accuracy through facial recognition software.
Residents of Homs confirmed Salama's identity, also known as Abu Hamza, and described him as overseeing checkpoints in the city with a reputation for extortion and harassment. It remains unclear how Salama ended up in the Damascus jail, with reports suggesting a dispute over profit-sharing from extorted funds with a superior officer.
After being handed over to the Syrian Red Crescent by rebel guards, Salama was returned to his relatives in Damascus. His current whereabouts are unknown, as efforts to reestablish contact with him have been unsuccessful. Verify-Sy, a Syrian fact-checking website, was the first to identify Salama and reported that he had been jailed for less than a month due to the aforementioned dispute.
