CNN confirmed Monday evening that it was misled by a man who was freed from a Syrian prison last week while the network’s cameras were rolling. During a package filmed on Wednesday, CNN viewers watched as chief foreign correspondent Clarissa Ward — along with a security guard who is a member of the rebel forces that toppled Bashar al-Assad’s government — discovered a man who had been locked away in a prison cell,

“Despite the purported harsh treatment of detainees in secret prisons, Gharbal appeared clean, well-groomed, and physically healthy, with no visible injuries or signs of torture—an incongruous portrayal of someone allegedly held in solitary confinement in the dark for 90 days.”

CNN said that a man who previously claimed to be a civilian detained in a Syrian prison was actually a military intelligence officer for the Assad regime, citing local sources. During a segment that aired Dec.