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,

CNN acknowledged this week it had been misled by a man purporting to be a Syrian prisoner but who was, in fact, a former intelligence officer under the Assad regime. The outlet said in a report posted on Monday it had encountered the man and documented his release in a report “while pursuing leads