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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Transferred To Federal Prison Hospital; Location Of Boston Bombers' Parents Are No Longer Home; Tsarnaev Family Has Chechen Ties; Vote Could End Air Traffic Furloughs; Furloughs Delayed 3,000 Flights; Kerry's Suspicions Confirmed About The Chemical Weapons Syria Has Used; 50 Building Collapse Survivors Found

Aired April 26, 2013 - 12:00   ET

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


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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN NEWS HOST: Good afternoon everyone. I'm Anderson Cooper live in Boston. Bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is now in prison. I want to give you the latest information we have. The wounded 19-year-old was moved from a hospital here in Boston overnight taken to Federal Medical Center Devens. That is about 40 miles from here. The facility holds male inmates, who need specialized or long-term medical care.

Meanwhile, the whereabouts of the suspect's parents is in question. Their father was supposed to have been on his way here to the U.S. by now, at least that's what he had said he was going to do. He had agreed to cooperate in the investigation, but his wife tells CNN her husband is delaying his trip indefinitely allegedly for health reasons. She also says they've left their home in Dagestan and gone to another part of Russia.

Thirty-four of the more than 260 people wounded in last week's terror attacks are still in the hospital. One remains in critical condition. At least 14 of the bombing victims have had to have amputations. There's a lot to tell you about in the hour ahead. He spent almost a week in the same hospital, as some of the victims he's accused of wounding, but now Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in that prison medical center.

Deborah Feyerick is outside the federal facility in Devens, Massachusetts. And, Elizabeth Cohen is with us from CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Deborah fill us in on the nuts and bolts of Tsarnaev's transfer? When did this happen?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, we can tell you that we got an e-mail about 6:00 -- just a few minutes after 6:00 this morning, saying that in fact the U.S. Marshals had transported Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to the medical facility here, which you see just behind me. This is the Devans Federal Medical Center.

There is a high security area plus we understand a team of doctors. This is done in close coordination with both the U.S. attorney's office, the FBI as well as the doctors that are attending to Tsarnaev. They're trying to keep him obviously as stable as possible because they -- he still has a way to go to heal from all his wounds. It was done we believe overnight. It was done at a time when the majority of cameras had pulled back from that Israel Deaconess Medical Center there in the heart of Boston.

And, it was done in a way so that there would be minimum disruption certainly to the patient because, again, they've got to keep him as stable as they possibly can. They're still counting on a lot of information from him to be forthcoming, Anderson.

COOPER: What do we know about the prison facility itself?

FEYERICK: What we can tell you and I know Elizabeth will probably fill you in also as well, this is a place where inmates, prisoners go to receive sort of basic medical care as well as mental health care as well.

They don't have an ability to do some of the extensive surgeries, but our understanding is that, that Tsarnaev -- because of the special conditions will have a team of doctors that will minister him, that will monitor him and that will make sure that nothing goes wrong. They have to guarantee that he heals and he heals well so that they can continue the process and continue the investigation, Anderson.

COOPER: OK, Deb, thanks. I want to bring in our Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. You've also done some checking, Elizabeth, on this medical facility, this prison. What kind of capabilities do they have? And what is his -- the fact that he was able to be transferred, what does that suggest about his condition?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. The fact that he was able to be transferred tells you that he wasn't in the same kind of serious condition that he was in when he was first captured. As a matter of fact, he was upgraded to fair a few days before he was sent over to Fort Devens.

So, let me tell you a little bit about Fort Devens. It's a serious facility. It's a pretty big hospital. It has about 1,000 patients in there right now, and they have a full medical staff, doctors, nurses, things like dialysis and X-rays. Now, as Deborah mentioned, they can't do -- I was told by their public information officer, they can't do extensive invasive surgeries.

So, again, that tells you something about his condition. If he needed surgery immediately, like a real surgery, they wouldn't be able to do it there. So, they must feel comfortable that he wouldn't need a surgery like right away in a second. They also don't have an accredited intensive care unit. So, it appears that perhaps they don't have an intensive care unit at all. Again, this tells us that his condition is much better than it was, you know, even just five or six days ago.

COOPER: All right, Elizabeth. I appreciate it, Elizabeth Cohen. Remember how the Tsarnaev brothers' father was supposed to be heading into the states to cooperate with the investigation, at least that's what he had claimed -- the family members had claimed. That's not going to happen as I mentioned for a while. Both parents have relocated apparently. They say to another part or Russia, away from the town of Dagestan where they spoke with the FBI officials and Russian officials earlier in the week. It looks like the trip of the father was planning -- well, at least it is not happening for now. Nick Paton Walsh is in the Tsarnaev hometown in southern Russia right now. So, you met and you talked to both the mother and father this week, do we know where they went?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: No. We know -- I think they were pretty anxious to retain that privacy after what's obviously been a very difficult week, a lot of media here and then of course on top of that the accusations against both of their sons and investigation by the FBI and Russian security.

We have though made our own journey here to try look into the past of this particular family, and being to the town inside Chechnya, the war-torn republic is really at the heart of all the volatility across this region, and being to the hometown of the Tsarnaev family there.

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WALSH (voice-over): Heading into Chechnya, you feel the weight of two brutal wars for an independence Moscow would never allow. Its ruins rebuilt over the only upside of the Kremlin's heavy hand. The Tsarnaev family's identity was forged here. We found their hometown and what's left of the family home. In its ruins lie the brutalized past, the brothers must have grown up with.

Tamerlan fled this town when he was about 11 before the second war began. And, this street was bombed. But, it's hard to be a Chechen without a tie to your homeland, and these ruins bombed out in the first Chechen war, what's left of the family home of the father to the alleged Boston bombers. Their great uncle remembers a devoutly religious Tamerlan from last year, but also them as children.

TRANSLATOR FOR TSARNAEV GREAT UNCLE: They were this big, but I didn't see them after that. And, they weren't involved in that crazy stuff.

WALSH (voice-over): I show him Tamerlan's picture from online.

TRANSLATOR FOR TSARNAEV GREAT UNCLE: That's him. That's Tamerlan, probably. He didn't live here, so I can't say.

WALSH (voice-over): The Americans say he's behind the Boston bombings.

TRANSLATOR FOR TSARNAEV GREAT UNCLE: I saw them on TV. They said he was dead. I saw that. There he looks good, but I saw him on T.V. like this and that's it.

WALSH (voice-over): Since the war's intense repression inside Chechnya has pushed the violence across the region into Dagestan.

Shootouts like this, which killed Abu Dujan, a militant whose video Tamerlan posted a link to a common place. Police call them bandits using Jihad as a cover for criminality. Militants like Abu Dujan claim they wage Jihad against corrupt Russian police.

This video police say shows them cutting the throat of a policeman in his home. The west sometimes in their rhetorical sites as they train and recruit in the woods, Chechnya's war began a cycle of violence. That doesn't stop, just spreads.

WALSH (on-camera): Now, that village most likely pretty important to the Tsarnaev family. And, we understand from the aunt that they went back there from Kyrgyzstan between the two Chechen wars in the late 1990's, tried to make a life there and then fled just before the second Chechen war started.

That village being heavily bombed, in fact most of that street being destroyed. This must have been a pretty formative time for Tamerlan most likely when he was 10 to 12, some time like that. He obviously then came back according to officials twice it seems in later stages of his youth, Dagestan, talk to people here. Investigators really trying to find out if he met any militants during that period of time, Anderson.

COOPER: Yes. Clearly still trying to figure out a lot of that six- month timeline that he was there. Nick Paton Walsh, appreciate it. You're looking at the live pictures of a makeshift memorial for the victims of last week's bombings. It's on Boylston Street here in Boston. We're getting much more coverage from Boston ahead.

We're also going to also look at some other stories making headlines today, including an important vote in congress that could bring an end to plane passengers miseries. Stay with us for that.

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COOPER: Welcome back. We got a lot more of the special coverage of the Boston bombings ahead. But, I do want to turn our attention to some of the other stories happening right now. Frustrated air travellers couldn get relief from congress in a vote taking place on Capitol Hill.

The house is planning to vote on a bill to end air traffic controllers furloughs brought on by forced federal spending cuts. The furloughs went into effect last Sunday. They've been blamed for more than 3,000 flight delays so far. This cartoon in the news to illustrate frustrations by a lot of folks. It shows one guy in the tower trying to get planes to inch over and make room on a crowded tarmac. Dana Bash is live for us on Capitol Hill. What's the status of the vote, Dana?

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it looks like it's heading towards passage. It's not completely done yet, Anderson. But, over 360 votes and counting, which means that it looks like it's going to get what's effectively a supermajority needed to do this in such warp speed, and it really is warp speed.

And, you know it is certainly not without controversy. Of course you talk to members of congress on both sides of the aisle. This is something that is rare here, it is bipartisan. And, they say they understand the problem of the -- that this does to the economy and so forth.

But, you also talk to democrats, many democrats who I talked to this morning walking around the hallways here and they many of them are furious and very frustrated that congress is able to carve out relief for air travellers and not some of the other people in this country, who are not really hurting because of these forced spending cuts. In fact that frustration was given a voice with the top -- one of the top democrats in the house this morning. Listen to what he said.

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REP. STENY HOYER, (D) MINORITY WHIP: We ought not to be mitigating the sequesters effect on just one segment, when children, the sick, our military and many other groups who will be impacted by this irresponsible policy are left unhelped. Instead of dressing this serious wound with a small band-aid, let's get to work on a real solution.

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BASH: And, Anderson, I was talking to Congressman Tim Walz of Minnesota this morning, who said, "how am I going to go home and tell my constituents that it's, you know, easier for me to fly and others to fly, but I still can't get the relief to the Mayo Clinic for cancer research." So, you're hearing a lot of that.

And, also a lot of frustration among some house democrats with their fellow democrats in the senate and at the White House for allowing this to happen not negotiating better, frankly, with republicans to at least use the desire to alleviate the pain at the FAA to get other help for those, who democrats feel need it most like for example head start and other recipients. And, I should tell you that this does pass, so this is going to eventually head to the president's desk.

COOPER: Yes. As we said, it just passed -- Do we know how soon this means air traffic controllers get back on the job, those who have been furloughed, things get back to normal?

BASH: That is all going to depend on the transportation secretary because what this legislation does is gives the transportation secretary the flexibility that he did not have and know the agency has with this forced spending cuts to move around money and make sure that the air traffic controller and others who deal with safety at the FAA deal with making sure that everything is running on time makes that he has the ability to send that money over there.

So, it doesn't directly earmark the money for air traffic controllers and so forth, but it gives them the flexibility. He talked to some republicans and they argue this is exactly what they wanted to do across the board with the nearly $100 billion in spending cuts. In fact, listen to what one republican argued this morning, Anderson.

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SEN. TOM LATHAM, (R) IOWA REPRESENTATIVE: We're taking this step because of the gross mismanagement of this important function for the safety of all Americans who fly and on behalf of the commerce that depends on a reliable air system. We are taking this action to end the administration's political gains that threaten our passengers' rights and their safety.

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BASH: So you do hear republicans saying that this is all about the administration playing politics that they somehow found a way to make the pain more visible by making the cuts even starker and deeper with air travel because those are the things we see. We see lines and people who are travelling a lot of them including members of congress by the way feel that pain.

The administration and the FAA in particular argues that's just not the case, that they were simply following the letter of the law with these forced spending cuts. But, I should tell you that it is kind of ironic that after these members are voting, what are they going to do? They're all going to go get on planes. So, they definitely do feel this pain more than many other pieces of the pie of these forced spending cuts.

COOPER: Dana, appreciate it. Secretary of State John Kerry is back in the United States. Now, a stronger backing for his belief that Syrian forces used chemical weapons against the rebels. Now, Kerry has been saying for several days that he believes Syria has used chemical weapons at least twice.

Today he's in a closed door session with all house members on Syria as well as North Korea earlier this week. In Brussels he told NATO members to make plans in case reports were confirmed that Syria had in fact used the chemical weapons.

Some remarkable news from Bangladesh where building collapse has killed more than 300 people. Rescuers have found at least 50 more people alive in the rubble amazingly. That's in addition to 70, who were pulled out earlier many in critical condition. It is just a horrific sight there.

It's going to take hours to dig out those huddled in what used to be the third floor of a garment factory. Hundreds more could still be buried. Long grief, various angry protesters demanding safer working conditions in Bangladesh garments industry. They want the factory owners arrested. You see the demonstrations there.

Still ahead, the Boston man, who says he was carjacked by the Tsarnaev brothers, speaks out. We'll have the dramatic details of his 90- minute ordeal of the time he thought he could be killed at any time. We'll be right back.

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COOPER: Welcome back to our continuing coverage. You're looking at live pictures there the area around Boylston Street where a makeshift memorial has sprouted up, people throughout the day just stopping to pay their respects. Ninety minutes of sheer terror, that's what a Boston man says he went through after being carjacked by the bombing suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The 26-year-old Chinese entrepreneur who wants to be identified only by his American nickname, "Danny," details his terrifying experience exclusively to "The Boston Globe."

Reporter Eric Moskowitz describes one critical moment of the ride. He says, "They stopped in Watertown Center so Dzhokhar could withdraw money from the Bank of America's ATM using Danny's card.

"Danny, shivering from fear, but claiming to be cold, asked for his jacket. Guarded by just one brother, Danny wondered if this was his chance, but he saw around him only locked storefronts. A police car drove by, lights off."

Danny would get another chance to escape later after enduring a seemingly endless drive through Boston.

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ERIC MOSKOWITZ, REPORTER, "BOSTON GLOBE": They're driving around for 90 minutes, constantly threatening him, and Danny's just trying to think, how do I stay alive? Don't want to say the wrong thing.

At one point he gets a text message from his roommate in Chinese, saying, where are you? How come you haven't come home?

And Tamerlan takes a Chinese-to- -- I'm sorry -- English-to-Chinese app, texts back, I'm sick. I'm not coming home tonight. I'm with a friend.

That seems weird to Danny's roommate. There's another text, then a call. They don't answer. There's silence in Danny's car. They call again.

Tamerlan says, you answer. If you say a word in Chinese -- because he knows if he's speaking in Chinese, he might rat them out -- I'll kill you, and don't be stupid.

So Danny says, answering to someone talking to him in Mandarin, in English I'm sick. I'm with a friend. I'm sorry, I've got to go.

And he's just trying to think, where can I get out? When is my moment?

Lucky for Danny, the car was running low on gas. They had to stop at a gas station.

Double stroke of luck, it wouldn't take the card. The younger brother has to go in to pay with cash. That leaves Danny with Tamerlan.

Think about, Tamerlan's been on the run all day. He's killed an MIT officer five hours earlier. He puts his guard down for a second. Puts the gun in the driver side pocket of Danny's SUV and he's got both hands fiddling with the GPS.

And Danny realizes, if I'm going to get out, now's the chance. I've got to unbuckle the seatbelt, open the door and go in one swift motion.

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COOPER: And that's exactly what he says he did.

Danny ran to a nearby gas station where a 911 call was made. His iPhone and car satellite system would eventually help police find the stolen car in Watertown. That's when that shootout ensued.

Now, the fundraising for victims of the Boston bombings has been remarkable, $26 million raised so far, but efforts to raise money for victims of the Texas plant explosions have fallen behind by comparison, only $1 million.

Fourteen people died in the West, Texas blast that left an entire town reeling of multi-block area around the blast just devastated. Some 200 people injured, more than 100 homes destroyed.

If you want to donate to the victims of either the West, Texas, disaster or the Boston bombings, go to CNN.com/ImpactYourWord.

"The Boston Globe" is reporting that Massachusetts anti-terror units were never told that the FBI had investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011.

Coming up, we're going to talk about what that failure to share intelligence meant.

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COOPER: Welcome back to a special edition of "CNN Newsroom." I'm Anderson Cooper. Here's the latest.

Live from Boston, the bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. has been moved from the hospital here to a prison 40 miles away. The 19-year- old was transferred overnight. He's now at a federal medical center, Devens.

The suspect's parents have also moved. The mother telling CNN she and her husband have left their home in Dagestan and gone to another part of Russia. They didn't say where.

Her husband is delaying his trip to the U.S. indefinitely. She says because of medical reasons.

Also, a mosque in Cambridge is going to hold an interfaith solidarity service today. It's the same mosque where the older bombing suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, is known to have worshipped on a number of occasions, and the younger suspect, Dzhokhar, is said to have visited once.

The Islamic Society of Boston has denounced the terror attacks and says many of its members were at the marathon finish line when the bombs went off.

Questions are mounting over apparent intelligence gaps in tracking one of the Boston bombing suspects. A Republican lawmaker calls the case a system failure.

Here's what Senator Lindsey Graham told me about his concerns.

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SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: The FBI and the CIA are very brave people, great organizations.

But how can you say, given the facts, 11 years after 9/11, the system is working the way it should?

And at the end of the day, the administration in charge deserves the credit when it works and the blame when it fails.

And the goal is not to blame them exclusively, but to fix it. And I hope we will. This will be a wakeup call and we fix it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Tom Fuentes is a former FBI assistant director and CNN analyst. Tom, thanks for joining us.

So this report in today's "Boston Globe" saying that the FBI did not alert anti-terrorism officials in Massachusetts that they had investigated the suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

What do you make of that? How significant is that? Is that a failure?

TOM FUENTES, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Anderson, I'm not sure of the accuracy of that particular report.

The JTTF in Boston, joint terrorism task force, has more than 20 agencies, federal, state and local, and representatives from the state police, from Boston police, from probably many of the surrounding towns, as well as the other federal agencies from DHS, including State Department, would all be on that JTTF, would all have access.

They would all discuss who's being investigated. They would all be able to go into all of the databases that each agency might use for its own purposes, but into master databases.

So I don't know how they would miss it because they have officers -- I would like to know the specific agency and whether or not they had an officer on the JTTF, and if not, why not?

That would be my question because the FBI certainly -- I've run two JTTFs myself personally. I know how that works.