Mumbai: The American news channel, Cable News Network (CNN), recently committed a major faux pas on national television when it flashed, Russian President, Vladimir Putin’s face on screen during the live news broadcast above a caption that read: “Jihadi John identified”.
CNN later apologised for a technical glitch that showed an image of Vladimir Putin during a news segment on an alleged ISIS executioner known as Jihadi John.
A picture of the masked man, who appears in beheading videos of at least five hostages, was followed by an image of the Russian prime minister looking somewhat annoyed.
The burly masked Islamic State (IS) terrorist known as 'Jihadi John' seen in gruesome videos of beheadings of Western hostages was named as a Kuwait- born Londoner.
Mohammed Emwazi, the 26-year-old ruthless killer, has featured in a series of chilling videos of executions of hostages, some of whom he kills himself. Emwazi, who holds a degree in computer programming, is shown speaking with a British accent and dressed in a black robe with a black balaclava covering all but his eyes and top of his nose.
He was also known to UK security services who chose not to disclose his identity earlier for operational reasons, the BBC reported.
Emwazi first appeared in a video in August 2014, when he apparently killed the American journalist James Foley.
He was later thought to have been pictured in the videos of the beheadings of US journalist Steven Sotloff, British aid worker David Haines, British taxi driver Alan Henning, and American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known as Peter.
Following Henning's beheading last year, Prime Minister David Cameron stepped up the hunt for the executioner.
CNN, however, made the blunder on Thursday during correspondent Max Foster’s report on Kuwaiti-born Emwazi, who has had a $10 million bounty on his head and is now subject to an international manhunt.
“I think, certainly there are concerns now about hostages being put at risk, and about eventually prosecuting this man, Jihadi John, in the future,” said Foster, while unaware of the photo mix-up beside him.
CNN told Russian news agency TASS, according to channel Russia Today: “Due to a failure of a video server during [Thursday’s] breaking news broadcast, a photo of Vladimir Putin, prepared for our next report, was accidentally shown. We apologise for that mistake.”
According to RT, this is not the first time that CNN was subject to scrutiny after making mistakes related to Russia.
Earlier last month, CNN accidentally annexed Ukraine to Russia.
It showed a map in which Ukraine and Russia was highlighted in the same colour with the Russian flag superimposed on it, as reported by The Independent.
