WELL, PUT HIM BACK: Prisoner CNN helped free from Syrian prison was actually notorious Assad-regime torturer.

The prisoner CNN helped free from a secret facility in Syria was actually a notorious member of Bashar al-Assad’s forces known to torture those who refused to pay him off, according to a shocking local fact check.

The network went viral last week with footage of the startled prisoner being led from the prison by journalist Clarissa Ward, who called it “one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed” in her 20 years of reporting.

But “independent and unbiased” fact-checkers Verify-Sy published a detailed report Sunday saying that the seemingly innocent prisoner was actually Salama Mohammad Salama — a first lieutenant in Syrian Air Force Intelligence with a long history of alleged war crimes.

“We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given a false identity,” CNN acknoweldged to the Telegraph. “We are continuing our reporting into this and the wider story.”

The CNN story last week showed Ward and a camera crew, escorted by a rebel fighter, visiting a former Syrian Air Force intelligence headquarters in Damascus and freeing the man who was found under a blanket locked in a windowless cell.

Exit quote: “Verify-Sy noted, however, that he appeared ‘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.'”

Heckuva job, CNN.