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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

MH-17 Victims' Remains to Undergo Tests; The Netherlands Pays Respect to MH-17 Victims

Aired July 23, 2014 - 12:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Anderson Cooper takes over our continuing coverage of the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. He begins right about now.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And good afternoon, everyone. I'm Anderson Cooper, on this day of mourning for the victims of Malaysia Flight 17. I want to welcome our viewers from the United States and around the world.

One by one, 40 victims of the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 were given the dignity they should have received six days ago. The first plane carrying their remains arrived in the Netherlands just a short time ago. We watched as Dutch soldiers slowly, carefully, silently carried the caskets, loaded them into hearses, saluting each one before moving on to carry the next. You could hear wailing as the first victims were carried off the plane. One can't imagine what the families were thinking, what they were feeling, as they watched those wooden caskets emerge. It is a national day of mourning in the Netherlands. One that's felt around the world.

Of the 298 people who died, 193 were Dutch citizens. The images, the dignified care for the victims, the quiet reflection, moments of silence. There's a lot to take in. I want you to see it for yourself. Let's watch.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

COOPER: An extraordinarily somber ceremony.

You're looking at live pictures now of the hearses as they are moving through the city where they have arrived. Again, a solemn procession. Some 40 people have been returned. We don't, of course, know who they are, who their -- what their names are, nor do the families. That will take days, weeks, perhaps even months in some cases, and there will be many more days like this, many more arrivals, many more coming home ceremonies.

There are live pictures of the hearses. The remains are being taken to a military facility obviously for testing. CNN's Erin McLaughlin is there.

Erin, what do we know about what happens now? This is, obviously, just the first group of victims to arrive home?

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, we expect those hearses to arrive here at this military base in the next hour or so. They'll drive through those gates and be brought to a medical facility inside where a team of some 75 technicians await. There's a separate team of 80 investigators that had been working with families to gather information. I spoke to one family that lost two boys to MH17 and they told me they spent four hours with those investigators, handing over things like dental records, DNA, detailed body descriptions.

I asked the chief forensics investigator why those interviews take so long. And he told me that it is an emotional process and they want to get as much information as possible. They don't want to get this wrong. And they also don't want to have to go back to those families to ask them for more information.

Now, the hope is that all of the victims will be identified here in the Netherlands before being repatriated, returned to their home countries. They're working with a number of international experts towards this end. And the Dutch are experts in this field. This very same team was on the ground in 2005, identifying hundreds of tsunami victims. They were also on the ground in Tripoli in 2010, working with airplane crash victims there. So they really do know what they're doing.

And I asked the chief investigator, just emotionally, how do they deal with this tragedy, with this loss. And he looked at me and he said, the bodies drive us. This team of Dutch investigators here in the Netherlands, they realize just how important it is to these families to have their loved ones returned, to give them the funerals, the respect that they deserve. And I also ask the chief investigator how long the process could take, and he said that given the number of victims and the nature of this plane crash, he said the process could take months.

Anderson.

COOPER: Erin McLaughlin, thanks very much.

I just want to stay with those pictures for a few moments. Just an extraordinary scene here. 40 hearses moving slowly through Hilversum in the Netherlands.

And Richard Quest is joining me now, watching these pictures.

It's extraordinary, we see Dutch citizens along the side of the road, complete strangers. Nobody knows who these victims are. Nobody knows who is in those hearses. But people want to stop along the side of the road. They want to bear witness to it. They want to pay their respects to this, the first group, who have started this journey home.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: And can there be any greater discrepancy, any greater difference, from the pictures we saw in eastern Ukraine and on that -- that dreadful train, compared to this dignified procession of hearses making its way through the Dutch countryside. The road, obviously, closed to allow the procession to move freely without let or hindrance.

And you say, Anderson, homecoming. But, of course, for many of these victims, this is the first stage on their journey home. Australia calls it Operation Homecoming. What they mean, of course, is after this torturous process of identification, this difficult moment, then many of these will then be moved on to their final country of origin for proper burial.

COOPER: And just seeing, again, those people on the side of the road watching these hearses on the highway. I'm just struck by how this is truly an international event. A global mourning. This is obviously a day of national mourning in the Netherlands given the huge number of fatalities they have suffered. But these are - they're victims from all around the world. This is -- these are people who, in death, have truly become global citizens in that sense.

QUEST: The decorum of today's service, as they let - as they were taken from the aircraft, a military precision, Anderson. The last post being played. The words, the method and the music, basically saying to them that you the struggle is over. You died on the battlefield of another country. You died part of a battle of which you had no part. And now you may rest on your journey home.

COOPER: And I think there's something about the fact that we don't know who exactly is in the caskets at this point that makes everybody stop and feel that they want to pay their respects, that they want to give these people the respect, the dignity, that they deserve, that they had in life and that they now are, once again, restored to in death.

We're going to take a -- just an extraordinary, extraordinary moment to witness.

QUEST: Germans, British, French, South Africans, United States, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australians, and, of course, Dutch.

COOPER: We're going to take a short break and we'll have a conversation with a family member who lost a loved one in the downing of Flight 17. What he has been told by Dutch authorities about the process that now his family will go through as we watch this going to break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Extraordinary images we're seeing right now live from Hilversum, Netherlands, as thousands of people line the roadways to see the beginning of a journey home. As our Richard Quest pointed out, 40 bodies, the first 40 who have returned from the battlefield of eastern Ukraine and are now in a slow procession along the highways in Hilversum. Forty hearses carrying the coffins that were flown home, flown back to the Netherlands. The beginning of what will no doubt be a long journey home to places and cities and countries around the world. It may take days, weeks, months in some cases to identify the remains, but there is nobody better equipped to do it than those experts in the Netherlands right now.

And there you see just a true outpouring of grief, of -- an outpouring of dignity, of people wanting to bear witness to the losses and pay their respects and welcome these strangers, some of them perhaps strangers, back to the Netherlands.

QUEST: And what I'm reminded of and what I think when I see these pictures, Anderson, is community. I see they didn't - they didn't know the people in those hearses. They may have had some relationship to this story in some way. But today they felt the need to show solidarity. And look on the other side of the road.

COOPER: Incredible.

QUEST: Cars pulling over. The traffic is stopped. A moment of respect for those who are passing by.

COOPER: It will be a long process now. And again, this is just the first day of this. This is the first grouping to arrive back in the Netherlands. There will be many more flights, many more people coming back.

QUEST: And what I would urge, as we watch these pictures, is a moment of reflection, because whether it's 250 bodies that have been recovered, people have been recovered. Whether it is 200 friends and family that are on those planes, whatever that number is, Anderson, it means that there are still some in Ukraine, in those sunflower fields that we've seen so much.

It means that the investigators have to get back there to do the really difficult task, shoulder to shoulder through the woods, through -- over the streams, through the fields, to see where anybody else may be resting, certainly not in peace.

COOPER: To even refer to them as bodies is -- seems -- always in these situations, but it just seems inappropriate, and I think we should actually change the word on that graphic.

These are people. These are men, women, children, infants in some cases. We know of three infants on board that flight. A huge number of the victims on this flight were children under the age of 18, some of them with their parents, some of them with their uncles, grandparents, some of them going to family reunions, others taking holidays, long anticipated holidays, heading toward Bali, heading toward Kuala Lumpur, all parts of Asia and elsewhere.

And now they are returning, beginning to return to their families. Many of the families are there in Hilversum as some of the victims arrive back at that beautiful ceremony at the airport.

You did -- you heard wailing from some people in the crowd, and, again, people don't know if it's their family members who are in those coffins, in those wooden coffins, riding in those hearses, but they cry nevertheless.

QUEST: I'm reminded of the words of President Obama in his first major statement after the atrocity. He called it an outrage of unspeakable proportions.

Well, today, the silent majority in the Netherlands are not speaking. They remain silent, but their voices are heard. Their voices are heard on those bridges, in those cars, in the dignity of the arrival ceremony that they were accorded.

COOPER: And, as you point out, Richard, again, people on the other side of the highway, stopping their cars, pulling over, other people on left side there, you see on the highway, standing along the road, standing silently, no doubt some crying, some with their hands on their hearts, some just bearing witness.

Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of what is the beginning of a homecoming for 40 of the victims of Flight MH-17.

If you're just joining us, we have seen truly extraordinary images over the last 20 minutes not only of the victims, the people, the fathers and daughters, the wives, the grandparents, uncle in one case, children returning home, but we are seeing an outpouring.

And there you see them, citizens in Hilversum, near Hilversum in the Netherlands, children who come with teddy bears. We've seen people throwing flowers onto the roads, thousands, tens of thousands of people -- look at them -- lined up, waiting, in many cases, for hours, waiting for strangers to pass by.

But they want to be there. Some people have applauded. Some stand silently crying.

These images are truly something that all the world can take part in, and all the world can watch and bear witness to what these people went through, to what these people not only went through in the final minutes and seconds of their lives and have gone through for the last six days, the torturous journey that they have taken to come to where they are now, finally being greeted in a country with dignity and respect, honor. Given all the honor that they had in life.

QUEST: As we of course realize that we will have to go through this many more times, Anderson, in the days ahead. The Dutch say they hope to bring back at least those bodies that have been recovered so far, all of them by Friday.

Well, it's Wednesday now. so that means those C-130s will, within hours, be heading back to Ukraine, with more empty coffins, to bring back more of the -- of those victims. And then this process will happen again.

And if anything is -- what we saw in the U.K. with the returning dead and fallen soldiers at Wootton Bassett, one might expect to see these numbers grow in the days ahead, as it becomes part of the ritual of civilized community to pay respects to those who have died, particularly those who have died in violent circumstance not of their own making.

COOPER: And I think Richard uses the word community. And I think it's an appropriate word, not only the community there in the Netherlands, a country small in population, but a country which has experienced a huge number, given their small population, of fatalities in this crash.

And the way that they have really taken charge of this investigation, taken charge and responsibility for the recovery of remains and the treatment of the victims of this crash.

I talked to one family member who we may hear from later on in the broadcast today who said that Dutch officials, Dutch police, have been assigned to each family to help them as much as possible.

Several Dutch officials have been assigned to families, not only to collect DNA evidence but also to just assist families in any way that they need.

We know that aboard that plane there were 193 citizens of the Netherlands, 193 Dutch, one of them a dual citizen, also a United States citizen, a young man named Quinn; 43 Malaysians -- 15 of the crew were Malaysians -- two of the infants were Malaysians -- 27 Australian citizens; 12 Indonesians, including one infant; 10 British, including one who had dual South African citizenship; four Germans, four Belgians; three Filipinos; one Canadian; and one New Zealander.

And (inaudible) as it approaches the city, you're seeing more and more people who have come, who have taken this day of national mourning in the Netherlands and taken it to heart and taken it as a day to bring their whole families to greet these 40 returning victims.

QUEST: And what occurs to me, as I watched these pictures, and I listen to you telling us the nationalities, is that for this moment we can have no knowledge of the nationalities of the people in the coffins in the hearses that we are watching passing by.

And it doesn't matter.

COOPER: Yeah, and I don't think it matters --

QUEST: Not a bit of it, because this is a moment where if we stand for anything, we have to stand for something, and we have to stand for the decency of these people.

COOPER: Let's listen.

I really have to say God bless the people of the Netherlands for doing this and for doing this in this way with such grace and such -- just such grace.

They are nearing the city of Hilversum where this long process will begin and, again, it bears repeating. This is the first of many such arrivals that we will see. These are the -- these are 40 of the victims of crash MH-17. We don't know the actual total number of those who have actually been found yet.

QUEST: No, we don't.

COOPER: That is one of the unknowns here at this point. There are still people, there are still human beings, citizens around the world, laying in fields in eastern Ukraine. There are observers now who say they're getting unfettered access. We just heard from an OSCE observer today who said that they found -- they have seen remains in those fields just today.

QUEST: The level of expertise now need in Ukraine is at a much higher standard, because you're talking, now, about requiring shoulder to shoulder, fingertip investigation of this crash site, which would be happening in any decent environment, but that of course is not possible at the moment. So we just continue to hope and pray.