A man who was filmed by CNN being released by rebels from a Damascus prison was a former intelligence officer of the ousted Syrian regime, according to local residents, and not an ordinary civilian who had been imprisoned, as he had claimed, the US media outlet said, which essentially admits its mistake.

CNN originally found the man while searching for clues about missing American journalist Austin Tice. In a video report, chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward and her team, accompanied by a rebel guard, were found in a cell in a Damascus prison that was padlocked from the outside. The guard blew the lock off with a gun and the man was found alone in the cell under a blanket.

When he stepped out into the open air, the man appeared confused. Questioned by the rebel fighter who freed him, the man identified himself as Adel Ghurbal from the central Syrian city of Homs.

He claimed he was held in a cell for three months, adding that it was the third prison he had been held in. The man also said he was unaware that the Assad regime had fallen. He was held in a prison run by the Syrian air force intelligence services until the collapse of the Assad regime.

An image obtained by CNN on Monday now points to the man’s true identity – he is said to be a lieutenant in the Assad regime’s air force intelligence directorate, Salama Mohammad Salama.

A resident of Homs gave CNN a photo of the same man said to be on duty in what appears to be a government office. Facial recognition software provided a more than 99 percent match to the man CNN met in the Damascus jail cell. The photo shows him sitting at a desk, apparently in military attire.

As CNN continued to seek information about the released detainee after the initial report, many Homs residents said the man was Salama, also known as Abu Hamza. They told CNN that he was known for running Air Force Intelligence Directorate checkpoints in the city and accused him of having a reputation for blackmail and harassment.

It is unclear how or why Salama ended up in Damascus prison and CNN has been unable to re-establish contact with him.

Over the weekend, Verify-Sy, which claims to be a Syrian fact-checking website, was the first to identify the man as Salama. It said he had been jailed for less than a month over a dispute about “sharing racketeering profits with a senior officer”. CNN cannot independently verify that claim.

Rebel guards handed him over to the Syrian Red Crescent. The medical aid organization later posted a photo of him on social media, saying it had returned a freed prisoner to his relatives in Damascus.

Salama’s current fate is unknown.