SANA (Syria): "False Witness Admits He Disseminated False News on Biased TV Channels"

There is a wide selection of desperate propaganda at Syria's official news site at the moment. This one looks tasty:

Mahmoud Abdul-Kader, a false witness from Homs, born in 1985, admitted that he made several phone calls with biased TV channels which sparked confusion in several Syrian cities.

Abdul-Kader said he managed to transmit untrue news at the request of Tareq al-Hussami who lives in Saudi Arabia. Al-Hussami, says Abdul-Kader, sent him foreign women from the Human Rights Organization, and instructed him how to talk to them about the situation in Homs in his own way, sending him money three times, 5000 SYP each, and two mobile phones by an unknown man.

Abdul-Kader said that al-Hussami asked him to shoot videos and send it to him to fabricate them. Later, says Abdul-Kader, al-Hussami gave his phone number to Lebanese persons from Human Rights Organization, and requested that he fake distress, claiming that there had been women and children who were killed or injured.

Abdul-Kader said al-Hussami gave his phone number to TV channels, instructing him to claim that there had been killings and injuries, citing an instance in which he reported to a TV channel that Homs had become a "city of ghosts" and a "real massacre" had taken place, and that water, electricity and communications had been cut off.

"Al-Hussami asked me to repeat news such as 'There is random and intense gunfire at protesters'…'Many people were killed and the injured lie on the streets'…'No one can take the injured to hospitals,' etc…"

Abdul-Kader said he had called al-Jazeera more than three times, B.B.C. and Al-Arabiya 4 times and France 24 and Orient twice.

Abdul-Kader added that al-Hussami promised that he will offer financial help to him and buy him a house when he visits Syria.

The Syrian Satellite Channel has aired a recording which was saved on Abdul-Kader's mobile phone, showing a man who lives abroad instructing him. The recording reveals the extent of exaggeration and lies dictated to him on Homs turning into a closed military zone and that the humanitarian situation is "deteriorated."

The Channel also aired other calls in which Abdul-Kader appears under different names and gives false testimonies.

Glad that's cleared up.