Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

Radicalized Youth; ISIS Accusations; Eddie Ray Routh Trial; Abid Naseer Trial

Aired February 19, 2015 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf Blitzer, thank you so much.

Great to be with you all on this Thursday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.

As the threat of ISIS spreads from Iraq and Syria to across the Middle East and now North Africa, here in the United States the White House is focused on one very specific issue, what it calls violent extremism. And if there were any doubt about this being a major priority right now, well, President Obama has just given his second speech on this very subject in 24 hours.

Speaking to officials from more than 60 countries at this White House summit, the one message that he was sure to take crystal clear was this, that the United States is not at war with Islam. The other, that the world needs to do more to battle the roots of extremism, starting with addressing one huge issue in the countries fertile for extremism, poverty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When people, especially young people, feel entirely trapped in impoverished communities, where there is no order and no path for advancement, where there are no educational opportunities, where there are no ways to support families and no escape from injustice and the humiliations of corruption, that feeds instability and disorder and makes those communities ripe for extremist recruitment. And we have seen that across the Middle East and we've seen it across North Africa. So if we're serious about countering violent extremism, we have to get serious about confronting these economic grievances. And as we go forward, let's commit to expanding education, including for girls. Expanding opportunity, including for women. Nations will not truly succeed without the contributions of their women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Trapped in impoverished communities. This is just one reason you just heard the president give for why thousands of young people are flocking to violent extremism. But one former militant disagrees, telling researchers, quote, I did not join the Taliban because I was poor, I joined because I was angry because they, being the west, wronged us.

Let me bring in Andrea Koppel, vice president of global engagement and policy at Mercy Corps, the global aid agency that spoke to that militant and others as part of this new, huge study that found it is injustice and not unemployment that leads to radicalization of young people.

Andrea, wonderful to have you on. Welcome.

ANDREA KOPPEL, VICE PRESIDENT, MERCY CORPS: Thanks so much, Brooke. It's great to be here.

BALDWIN: So we have followed, you know, militants like the British ISIS mast fighter, jihadi john, who came from a privileged background. So if it's not poverty, Andrea, what in this study did you find that really is the catalyst or the background for drawing these young people in?

KOPPEL: It's a great question. In our study, Mercy Corps looked at three of the countries that we're working in, Afghanistan, Columbia and Somalia. These are all conflict ridden countries. Countries where there is tremendous poverty and very high unemployment of youth. And we started this study because we wanted to see, was it, in fact, unemployment that was driving these young people to join -- join these groups. And we found that it was not. It was corruption. It was abuse of power. It was the fact that they have no voice, the fact that they're marginalized. The fact that there are no services, no social services. There's poor governance. And so, you know, the question then is, how do you address these grievances? And that answer is a fairly complex one.

BALDWIN: I was going to get to that because if you study one part of it, right, you have to have some sort of solution in coming up with the latter part. Let me get to that.

But on the issue of, you know, saying it's corruption and abuse of power, you know, and as you mentioned your study specifically concentrating on people Afghanistan, Somalia and Columbia. You know, what about Iraq and in Syria, where these militants are offering quite the alternative. I mean they're offering education. They're offering health clinics. They're offering salaries and also a sense of, you know, almost worthiness, a sense of importance for these young people.

KOPPEL: Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head, Brooke. It is the fact that we, in the development community, have not been listening to these young people. We haven't been engaging them in program design. They are frustrated and angry about the fact that there is corruption and abuse and whatnot.

But the solution is that we need to have a more holistic approach. We need to be looking at their psychosocial needs. We need to be targeting the youth better. Believe it or not, a lot of the kids that are brought into these training programs or vocational training are the ones who speak English. They're not necessarily the ones who are the most venerable. We need to be looking at getting more of good governance programing in so that we help those governments where they live develop social services, build up a better bureaucracy that's -- that isn't full of cronyism. So it's having a much more thoughtful approach that puts youth at the center. BALDWIN: But engaging young people, it has to be part of it, but I

can't imagine, how do you counter this young person who is inspired to join this fight that to them seems like so much bigger than them, so much bigger than their lives?

KOPPEL: You know, one of the things that Mercy Corps found in our study is that there is a true dearth of research out there that gets at the root of some of those questions. And so one of the things that we would appeal to the Obama administration and other governments to do is to fund more research and to look at these issues.

But the fact of the matter is, a lot of the recruitment happens in communities where, whether it's the Taliban, whether it's the FARC or whether it's al Shabaab, they know these young people. They're either a friend of the family or a friend of theirs. One young Taliban, former Taliban member said to us, they just walk into the community and they take you by the hand and they say, come with us.

So these are super complex problems and we need to have really a 360 approach to the way that we do good development. It isn't just, Brooke, about funding more military counter insurgency programs. It's about building programs around these youth that also involve their governments.

BALDWIN: Andrea Koppel, come back. I appreciate it.

KOPPEL: Thank you so much.

BALDWIN: And I hope more research is done. This is so, so important.

KOPPEL: Brooke, thank you so much. And I would just say, if anybody wants to learn more about the report to go to mercycorps.org, m-e-r-c- y-c-o-r-p-s. Thank you.

BALDWIN: You got it. Thank you very much.

And sort of staying on this. You know, while the president was speaking, the Pentagon was said to be analyzing some shocking new claims from this front line in the war with ISIS, allegations of horrifying mass murder, like something out of the dark ages. We're hearing dozens of people, as many as 40 people, have been burned alive. This is said to have happened in a town the militants overran last Friday. Although CNN cannot independently confirm this report, according to an Iraqi official, the burning victims include police officers and tribesmen.

Ben Wedeman is our CNN senior international correspondent who is live now in northern Iraq.

And, Ben, just beginning with the alleged burning of these 40 people, this is said to have happened in a town they seized, what, just a couple miles from that al Assad air base we talked about at the end of last week where U.S. personnel, by the way, are based. At one point we thought ISIS may have made this attempt to overrun and seize this base. Where is ISIS now? Tell me about their movements. WEDEMAN: Well, the incident occurred in Baghdadi, which is about nine

miles outside the Ayn al Assad air base, which is one of the biggest air bases in Iraq where, as we know, several hundred U.S. military personnel are located.

The incident, however, it's not at all clear what happened exactly. Two Iraqi officials, a police official and the head of the Anbar prevention council, have claimed this has happened, but no video has come out and we know the modus operandi of ISIS is that they publicize this sort of thing. We've seen no pictures. We've seen no video. And the Iraqi authorities aren't - and if you look in the Iraqi media, they're not even making a particularly large deal out of this as well. So it's not clear what happened.

And it's important to keep in mind that Anbar province is predominantly Sunni. The Baghdad government, which is dominated by Shia, has been neglecting for years the situation in that province. So these reports, these claims by provincial officials may be simply an attempt, as we've seen in the past, to get the central government to provide more support to those who remain somewhat sympathetic to the government. And we've heard time and time again, for instance, that ISIS already controls 80 percent of Anbar province. So this really may be an incident that didn't take place, but it's a story that may be being used simply to draw attention to Anbar.

BALDWIN: Well, to your point, perhaps they're story tellers, definitely big on propaganda, and also huge, huge, huge on recruitment. I know CNN has some new pictures I just want to share with our viewers that appear to show new ISIS recruits celebrating some sort of graduation. You know, when you look at some of these faces, they look, Ben, so young. We have this new training video. What have you learned about these new recruits and exactly what they do to train?

WEDEMAN: Well, the problem with this sort of video is it's propaganda. We don't know who these people are. We don't know whether there was actual training or simply acting for the people who shot it. There's sort of a classroom scene where it appears some pimple-faced bearded teacher is telling us that the students are being told -- taught right from wrong. But at the end of the day, this is propaganda and should be treated as such. It may have no semblance to reality whatsoever, but this is what ISIS excels at, putting this sort of thing out and then having it broadcast all over the world and everybody watching. So it's - in a sense, whatever it is, it succeeds at getting a very big audience.

BALDWIN: Ben Wedeman, thank you, in northern Iraq.

Just ahead, we are finally learning about some of these documents found at that covert operation, the mission at Osama bin Laden's compound. Why some of his lieutenants posed as women.

Plus, is the man who shot and killed the "American Sniper" insane? His lawyers desperately trying to prove that. Just moments ago, a combat stress expert took the stand. And did Eddie Murphy refuse to play Bill Cosby during the "Saturday

Night Live" anniversary show? What reportedly happened behind the scenes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Here we are day seven in what has been dubbed the "American Sniper" trial in Stephenville, Texas. Again today, the defense persisting in its mission to prove insanity. The day's first witness, a forensic psychiatrist who assessed Eddie Ray Routh, the man accused of killing renowned Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle and his friend. He testified that Routh once believed his coworkers were cannibals. This doctor say Routh was, quote, "clearly psychotic."

Let's talk about this with HLN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson and CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin.

So, hello to both of you.

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hello.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Hello.

BALDWIN: Joey Jackson, first to you. When you have this, you know, MD, when you have a psychiatrist explaining -- talking about psychotic and going into the definition of insanity, that has to be key. It's not just a layperson, this is someone who knows what they're talking about.

JACKSON: Very compelling.

HOSTIN: Yes.

JACKSON: You get an expert witness there.

BALDWIN: Yes.

JACKSON: You go through the credentials. And, of course, that means you lay the foundation, you can him how many articles you've written about the topic and what is your educational background and how long you've been involved. And so from the get-go they sound very credible and very compelling.

And now you shift, Brooke, into the actual issues related to this case and this particular individual. And certainly, when you have an expert that's suggesting what you just mentioned, psychotic, cannibals, and it's not only the expert, but you dovetail that with the other testimony, the defense, of course, we know began with the family. And so you get the layman description of who Routh was and who he turned into and now you have an expert corroborating that very compelling final point.

Remember the standard, more likely than not that he was insane. Not beyond a reasonable doubt insane, defense has to establish, is it more likely than not by preponderance of the evidence. And if the jury believes that, guess what, not guilty by reason of insanity.

HOSTIN: And he had to have been insane at the time of the incident or under sort of this psychotic event, so much so that he didn't know the difference between right or wrong.

BALDWIN: Not after the fact, at the time.

HOSTIN: Not after the fact and not before.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HOSTIN: So I've always said from the very beginning, I said, this is going to be a battle of the experts because if the jury believes that he was psychotic and clearly he was psychotic, they also have to sort of get past the burden of, well, was he really faking it at the time? Because we know we've got those text messages from the victim, Chris Kyle, saying this guy is nuts. Now, that's a layperson saying I think he's nuts, but that's a layperson that said it at the time when they were together. And I think that's going to be very compelling.

BALDWIN: As I hear all the testimony, I'm very mindful if I were a juror how the jurors are taking all this in. And I think the other issue is, we know that Routh had been at VA centers. And, according to his family, they wanted to keep them there, right, but he had to leave and the whole issues surrounding PTSD and that is a very, very real, invisible war that so many of our veterans suffer here at home.

JACKSON: Absolutely.

BALDWIN: And I'm wondering how sympathetic in Texas -

JACKSON: Right.

BALDWIN: These jurors will be.

JACKSON: That's a great point.

HOSTIN: You know we've - yes, we've been sort of -- Joey and I have been discussing this a lot. And I'm sort of conflicted because I think you -- by and large most juries reject the insanity defense because they want someone to be held accountable. And we're talking about the death of an American hero. We've all seen the movie.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HOSTIN: Probably some of the jurors have seen the movie as well. So I wonder if they're really going to have this sympathy and empathy for another soldier because -

JACKSON: But that's - yes.

HOSTIN: Remember, Routh is an ex-Marine. I just wonder if they're going to go that far or are they going to say, you know what, I want him to be held accountable, I want him in prison.

BALDWIN: What do you think? JACKSON: That's the wild card.

BALDWIN: It is, right?

HOSTIN: Yes.

JACKSON: That really is because what you're doing is you're looking at a jury, they're in Stephenville. Remember the connection of Kyle to Stephenville. So now you have a local jury and who are their sympathies going to be to? And, yes, people are very skeptical of the insanity defense. Why? Because, Brooke, if you're sick and I look at you, and you have a cold, you're coughing, you're hacking, I could see it. I could visually determine, Sunny and I could examine and we could say, you know what, she's not feeling well. But we can't get into your mind, so we have to rely upon something else.

And then, of course, right, 1 percent of the time, in 1 percent of the cases insanity is used and only one in four of those does it actually work. But this may very well be such a case.

HOSTIN: If it were ever a case, I think this is the case that does qualify for the insanity defense. It has just all the hallmarks of that. But, again, I think we may be up against just the perception against mental illness and also the perception that -

JACKSON: Yes.

HOSTIN: If I find him guilty by reason of insanity, he will not be held accountable, when we all know, in the legal profession, that being in a mental institution for the rest of your life -

JACKSON: Yes.

HOSTIN: Like Hinckley, is certainly holding someone that's sick accountable. So I just - I just wonder -

JACKSON: But not to the same degree that you're guilty is accountability.

HOSTIN: Yes. Yes.

BALDWIN: OK.

JACKSON: At least in a jury's mind. And that's the wild car, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Right. We'll see. Joey Jackson, Sunny Hostin, thank you so much.

JACKSON: (INAUDIBLE).

HOSTIN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: We'll obviously keep discuss that one in Texas.

Also this, new information from documents seized by Navy SEALs during the bin Laden raid in Pakistan, now showing al Qaeda members at the time posing as women. Why? We have that story next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It has been three and a half years now since SEAL Team 6 took out Osama bin Laden in that covert raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan. And now, for the very first time, documents seized from the al Qaeda leader's compound are set to be revealed. That's what prosecutors in this trial of this terror suspect just promised this jury in New York. Abid Naseer is accused of being bin Laden's minion, even according to my next guest writing here in "The Daily Beast," disguising himself as a woman to just get the job done. Naseer reportedly says he was just trying to pick up women. Those are just a few of the juicier tidbits expected to come out of this trial. Michael Daly is with me here on set. He's been writing about this for "The Daily Beast."

Welcome back, sir.

MICHAEL DALY, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE DAILY BEAST": Thank you for having me.

BALDWIN: So, let's begin with, it wasn't just Naseer, it was others, right, who posed as women online?

DALY: It was their standard -- according to the government, the standard way al Qaeda would communicate in this conspiracy was that they would pose as women online. In --

BALDWIN: Why?

DALY: Well, the government says that they did it because they thought that they would get less attention if they were women, that the NSA wouldn't be looking for women, I guess.

BALDWIN: Female e-mail handles and what else?

DALY: Yes. And that's basically what they were doing is online they were acting like they were women. The defendant in this case says that he was really only trying - he was posing as a woman because nice Muslim girls wouldn't talk to him if he was a boy, so he was kind of trying to meet girls by being a girl, if you want to --

BALDWIN: OK. Looking at your face and -- OK. They also used -- when they would be talking about bombs in conversation -

DALY: Right.

BALDWIN: They would feminize bombs.

DALY: Yes, they would - the -- they were allowed their choice of bomb depending on what materials were available where they were going to mount the attack, according to the government.

BALDWIN: OK.

DALY: And, you know, if you lived in a place where you could get acetone in a beauty parlor, you might pick one bomb. If you had another one where peroxide was available, you might pick another. And then they communicated which kind of bomb they chose by using a woman's name. And this --

BALDWIN: Give me an example.

DALY: Nadia was in this case. The guy said he's going to marry Nadia. And anybody who knows -- remembers 9/11, the -- a wedding was the code word for an attack. So they apparently got very fond of this wedding. And I think out of the wedding code word came the idea of, well, we'll have women. And I think they have a problem with women anyway. I mean this guy, when he came into court at the beginning of the week, the first thing he did was he complained to the judge that a female correction officer had searched him.

BALDWIN: That's right.

DALY: And he went right from saying, I don't want a female officer to search me, to saying, well, yes, I did kind of pose as a woman online.

BALDWIN: How about that.

DALY: Yes, I thought so.

BALDWIN: And then these MI5 witnesses for the government who will be testifying, according to your piece, they are being allowed by this judge to, what, wear makeup and disguise --

DALY: Makeup -- light makeup.

BALDWIN: Light makeup.

DALY: And wigs.

BALDWIN: And wigs.

DALY: Well, I think the idea is that they - they were the guys who made the case in Manchester, England, this guy -- where this guy was operating. And their government and our government, I guess, is concerned that they might be identifiable. So they're going to - they're allowed to come into court wearing wigs and makeup as long as the jury can still see their facial expressions and try to judge from that, you know, whether to believe them or not.

BALDWIN: Have you ever covered a trial quite like this, Michael Daly?

DALY: No. And then, in the middle of all of it -

BALDWIN: Yes.

DALY: It starts seeming, you know -- you can almost forget what was at stake here. In the middle of all of it you -- they come in and they say, well, we're going to introduce documents that were the SEALs grabbed when they killed bin Laden.

BALDWIN: From the raid. DALY: And you've got - you know, I've knocked the FBI sometimes, but this, you really got to give them credit because they had the foresight to fly an agent to Afghanistan just before the raid. He was there at the airport when they came back with bin Laden's body and with the documents that they seized and he then began a chain of custody, which you need to have in order to introduce something in a criminal trial. So I think this letter is going to be very important in this trial. And they might not have been able to introduce it if the FBI hadn't thought to have a guy there in Afghanistan. And that guy, who saw bin Laden's body and vouchered all these documents, is going to testify at trial.

BALDWIN: Huge kudos to the FBI. Michael Daly, we'll keeping reading every twist and turn in this odd trial in which he is defending himself, by the way. Let's also mention that.

DALY: Not doing a bad job.

BALDWIN: Not doing a bad job. Michael Daly, "The Daily Beast," thank you so much. Come back.

DALY: Thank you. Thank you.

BALDWIN: Next, new information about the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. For starters, did you know he has a wife and children. But we are also hearing how he bucked the commands of al Qaeda leaders.

Plus, former "SNL" star Norm McDonald giving quite a bit of inside information via Twitter on the 40th anniversary show over the weekend. He said Eddie Murphy backed out of a sketch about Bill Cosby. We're now hearing from Cosby on the situation. What he said coming up. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)