There are doubts about a report about a Syrian prisoner. Assad reports from exile. All developments in the news blog.
5.30 p.m.: CNN journalist Clarissa Ward recently caused a stir with a report about a private prisoner in Syria. Read more about this here. However, doubts are now being raised about the report: The Syrian research platform “Verify-Sy” reports that the prisoner is said to be an employee of the Syrian secret service.
In the report, Ward discovered a man in a prison cell who introduced himself as “Adel Gharbal.” According to “Verify-Sy”, the man’s name is “Salama Mohammad Salama” and he is also known as “Abu Hamza”, who is said to have been responsible for the death and torture of civilians.
Ward has not yet commented publicly. Her employer, CNN, told the New York Post that the man in the video may have given a false identity. “We are continuing our reporting on this story and the rest.”
2:02 p.m.: The deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he “at no time” considered resigning or fleeing the country. According to a Telegram message from Assad, he went from Damascus to the Hmeimim military base in the early morning of December 8th. The leadership in Moscow asked him to leave the base on the same day after drone attacks on the base. He did that in the evening of the same day.
The entry on Assad’s Telegram channel dates from December 16 and is the first public statement since his overthrow more than a week ago. The HTS-led alliance began its offensive against the Assad leadership on November 27th and captured the strategically important city of Homs on December 7th. The rebels said they began encircling the capital Damascus on December 7th. A day later, Assad flew to Moscow.
12.48 p.m.: The top German diplomat Michael Ohnmacht is supposed to set up communication channels for the European Union with the new rulers in Syria. As the German Press Agency learned from EU circles, Ohnmacht is the high-ranking European diplomat who was commissioned by Foreign Affairs Representative Kaja Kallas to travel to Damascus to establish contacts with the new government and those responsible there.
The German has been head of the EU-Syria delegation since September. He previously worked for the Foreign Office as ambassador in Libya, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, among other things.
Kallas announced the dispatch of a top diplomat to Damascus on Monday morning on the sidelines of foreign ministers’ talks on the situation in Syria, but did not mention a name. According to its own statements, the EU has until recently had no contact with the Islamist group Haiat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which was largely responsible for the overthrow of ruler Bashar al-Assad. The group and people associated with it remain on the United Nations terror list and are subject to EU sanctions. Ohnmacht began his diplomatic career in the Foreign Office in 1998. According to his own statements, in addition to French and English, he also speaks Arabic and some Turkish.
