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Link in Student Kidnappings; Underestimating ISIS; No Terror Charge; Church Group Calls for Peace

Aired September 29, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: For our international views, "AMANPOUR" is next. For our viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.

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

Great to be with all of you. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We have to begin now with this breaking news into the disappearance of that University of Virginia sophomore Hannah Graham because now there is word the man accused of kidnapping her could be linked to the disappearance of a Virginia Tech student from a case some five years ago. We told you the story of Hannah Graham. Remember, she went missing September 14th. This is surveillance video. They've been combing through different cameras, different pieces of video, the police, ever since, trying to find this man. This is the last man seen with her, Jesse Matthew, Jr.

So, police named Matthew a suspect. They managed to track him down to this beach in Texas last week. He is expected to make his first court appearance Thursday.

But now, here's the thing, police say Matthew's arrest has provided them with what they're calling a forensic link to the abduction and death of Morgan Harrington from 2009. It is a link they are now pursuing.

So, let's talk about this with correspondent Jean Casarez, who was just in Charlottesville for many, many days working this one, and CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin.

So, we sort of have to tackle two things. When we say forensic link, what does that mean. And, two, let's refresh everyone's memory as far as what happened with Morgan Harrington five years ago.

But first to you, Sunny, forensic link.

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, that could mean a number of things. And people sometimes jump to conclusions and they think --

BALDWIN: Let's not do that.

HOSTIN: Let's not do that. They think right away, that must be definitive. That must be DNA evidence, because that's sort of the CSI effect that I think we all suffer from because of all these shows and movies.

BALDWIN: Of course.

HOSTIN: So the bottom line is, I think we've got to be careful when we talk about forensic link because we don't really know what that means. That could certainly mean DNA, but it could mean a lot of other things as well.

BALDWIN: Morgan Harrington. I remember the story five years ago.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Me too.

BALDWIN: Virginia Tech student in Charlottesville going to a Metallica show at the arena there.

CASAREZ: At the John Paul Jones Arena.

BALDWIN: Yes.

CASAREZ: Which is now the command center for the search for Hannah Graham. She was at the concert that night, October of 2009. She left the arena at a break or intermission. She couldn't get back in. They wouldn't let her in. So she begins to walk, trying to conceivably get home or get a ride. She was never seen from again.

Now, a couple months later, the top she was wearing, the clothes, were found in Charlottesville. And then in January of 2010, her remains were found on a farm outside of Charlottesville. They were able, though, to get DNA from those remains on a perpetrator allegedly.

BALDWIN: Uh-huh.

CASAREZ: Let me give you one other thing. In 2005, there was a sexual assault of a woman in Fairfax City, Virginia. She survived. She gave a sketch of exactly what the person looked like she believed that sexually assaulted her. They got DNA from her. And according to the FBI, in 2012, the DNA from the sexual assault victim matched the DNA on Morgan Harrington. So if there is a link with Hannah Graham, three people now allegedly associated with a person in custody, Jesse Matthew.

BALDWIN: Let me just add this because I was checking on Twitter. This is one of the reporters in the Roanoke area where the Harringtons live and she had just sat down with the parents and the mother. This is according to her Twitter account. The mother says she is relieved, after five years, to possibly have her daughter's killer.

I know they're still hesitant. For five years she has no idea what happened to her child. So it's like once -- I can't imagine parents hearing this possible link --

HOSTIN: Yes. And I will say, you know, I don't want to minimize this because I think what the police department indicated was that this was a significant break.

BALDWIN: Yes. HOSTIN: Those are strong words. And if this is all true, and if this suspect, Jesse Matthew, that's in custody is linked to these three women --

BALDWIN: Right.

HOSTIN: I mean, which is significant, we're talking about a serial rapist, serial killer on the loose, I think it's all due to good police work. And I think we were all sort of shocked at the emotion and the frustration that the chief of police showed in Virginia when he was talking about Jesse Matthew well then (ph). Now we realize that perhaps that is why he felt so strongly about it. This is just good, old-fashioned police work. And, if this case goes to trial, my goodness, the prosecutors will have a lot to work with.

CASAREZ: Let me add one thing that Sunny is saying.

BALDWIN: (INAUDIBLE).

CASAREZ: There is more women that went missing than just these three. There are more. It's the route 29 corridor.

HOSTIN: Uh-huh. Yes.

CASAREZ: Other women recently, in the last decade, have all gone missing.

BALDWIN: We're working on getting a reporter out of Charlottesville, Virginia, just to get us some new information. This reporter talked to the Harringtons as well today and will give us more information. So this could be -- could, gain, huge, huge, huge. Ladies, thank you very much. I really appreciate that.

CASAREZ: Thank you.

BALDWIN: We move along to this. U.S. led air strikes still pounding key ISIS positions. In the past 24 hours, anti-aircraft transport vehicles have been hit, along with an ISIS training camp. But as the coalition grows and more countries commit to this bombing campaign, people living in this border town of Kobani, where CNN captured these dramatic pictures of a firefight, you see it for yourself, a CNN exclusive, they say fear a massacre. That fighters are now fewer than two miles away and nearby air strikes are not keeping them back.

So the question remains, how much damage are air strikes like this really doing? If you ask ISIS, they will tell you not very much. In fact, in a CNN exclusive, one of the terror group's fighters says the hits are trivial at best.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We, the Islamic state, we have revenue other than oil. We have other avenues and our finances are not going to stop just because of oil losses. They hit us in some areas and we advance in others. If we are pushed back in Iraq, we advance in northern Syria. These strikes cannot stop us, our support, or our fighters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Back here at the United Nations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking about the threat of ISIS called the group a cancer and even compared them to his number one enemy, Hamas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Many of the countries represented here rightly applauded President Obama for leading the effort to confront ISIS. And yet weeks before, some of these same countries, the same countries that now support confronting ISIS, oppose Israel for confronting Hamas. They evidently don't understand that ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree. ISIS and Hamas share a fanatical creed which they both seek to impose well beyond the territory under their control. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: An admission from the president that the U.S. was caught by surprise on ISIS. In a CBS "60 Minutes" interview, President Obama naming names, calling out intelligence officials for misjudging the abilities of these Islamic militants now overrunning Syria and Iraq. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: But after many, many intelligence briefings over the course of this past year, many are crying foul saying the president got fair warning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CLAPPER, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR: The -- Syria has become a huge magnet for extremists. First the -- those groups were engaged in Syria itself, some 1,600 different groups. We estimate somewhere in the neighborhood of between 75,000 and 110,000, of which about 26,000 we grade as extremists.

SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), INTELLIGENCE CHAIRWOMAN: This leads to the major concern of the establishment of a safe haven and the real prospect that Syria could become a launching point or weigh station for terrorists seeking to attack the United States or other nations.

JOHN BRENNAN, CIA DIRECTOR: We are concerned about the use of Syrian territory by the al Qaeda organization to recruit individuals and develop the capability to be able not just to carry out attacks inside of Syria, but also to use Syria as a launching pad. So it's those elements, al Qaeda and ISIL, that I'm concerned about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Josh Rogin, let me bring you in, our CNN political analyst and also senior correspondent for "The Daily Beast."

Welcome, sir.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you.

BALDWIN: So you heard the president. You heard the mash up. I mean how can the White House say that when multiple officials, as we just heard, testified about this concern. We have reporting from Jim Sciutto here at CNN that the CIA issued multiple reports on ISIS in the months before the advance through Iraq.

ROGIN: You're absolutely right. The president is technically telling the truth. The intelligence community did underestimate ISIS, but he's not telling the whole truth because he didn't mention that there were multiple warnings, not just by the intelligence community, but also by members of Congress, the State Department, the CIA, groups on the ground, including the Free Syrian Army, which has been fighting ISIS on the ground for over a year. The president here is trying to explain why he didn't go after ISIS then but he did go after ISIS now. And his explanation sums up to, well, we couldn't have predicted this. And that's just disputed. And most people inside the system, and our sources tell us, that there were warnings but the president decided he didn't want to go into Syria at that time so he chose the intelligence that fit his policy.

BALDWIN: Well, one of your sources in Eli Lake's (ph) piece about which we're speaking told him -- or one of your colleagues, quote, "either the president doesn't read the intelligence he's getting or he's BS-ing." Which is it?

ROGIN: Right. Right. I don't know which it is. Let's hope it's the latter. I guess that's better. I don't know. I think the bottom line here is that there was a dispute inside the intelligence community.

BALDWIN: Yes.

ROGIN: Some people thought this problem was worse than it was and a lot of people were sounding the alarm. And those people didn't win the day and they weren't listened to. So those people are now saying, look, we were right, this was bad, we should have done more. And the president is trying to argue, no, we did the best we could with the information we had.

BALDWIN: There was a pronoun that you just used. It was the "we," right? He pinned in this interview with "60 Minutes," pinned it on a "he," he being Jim Clapper, you know, director of National Intelligence. And I'm just wondering if you think he should have said the collective "we," as in, yes, the buck should have stopped with us, with me, President Obama.

ROGIN: Right. The president knows that he's got a policy to defend here and he wants as many allies to back up that policy. And it seems that Jim Clapper and him were on roughly the same page, but a lot of people weren't. In the end, the president's vote is the only one that matters. He made the policy over the last three years. He decided not to arm the rebels. He decided to let Iraq and Syria get worse before the U.S. intervened. So he is responsible.

I think he knows that. He just is presenting a history here that doesn't match with what a lot of people on the ground said happened at the time. And that's where people are really getting upset because they want the president to own up to the fact that U.S. policy neglected Syria for years. And now, even though he may be doing the right thing according to some, it's not enough and it's not going to fix the problem because of how bad it's gotten over so long a time. And that's something that the history books will have to sort out.

But for now, the president is being very defensive. He wants to make sure that the American people don't think he's to blame for what's happened in Iraq and Syria. There's an argument for that, but a lot of people in the system are simply saying, no, we warned you, President Obama, you should have done more and now it's worse than it had to be.

BALDWIN: Josh Rogin, thank you, and the reporting from your colleague, Eli Lake, over at "The Daily Beast," appreciate it very much.

Coming up, you know, listen, we're talking a lot about ISIS and these terrorists overseas. Have you heard this? This woman is beheaded in Oklahoma allegedly by this co-worker trying to convert people to Islam. We now know more about the suspect's alleged motive, including how he felt at work.

Plus, there are new accusations another man threatens to behead his co-worker.

And, protests. Look at these pictures erupting in Hong Kong as crowds demand democracy. This is an historic moment and CNN is right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Now to two cases out of Oklahoma. One involves a beheading, the other, the threat of one. Authorities say it was the beheading Thursday in the city of Moore that prompted police in Oklahoma City to take a second look at this case. This man, Jacob Muriithi, he allegedly threatened to cut off the head of a co-worker at the nursing home where they worked. The co-worker, who is not named, told police that back on September 13th, this man approached her because she was wearing a Star of David, a Jewish symbol. She told him she wasn't Jewish.

The affidavit then read this way. "Jacob told the victim that he was Muslim and he represented ISIS and that ISIS kills Christians. She asked Jacob why they kill Christians and Jacob said, quote, that is just what we do." The co-worker thought he was joking and the affidavit indicates she later asked him in jest if he was going to kill her. The affidavit goes on, he, quote, "told the victim, yes, he was going to cut her head off and after he did it he was going to post it on FaceBook."

Muriithi told the FBI he was joking and initially he was charged with a misdemeanor. However, Oklahoma City Police say this man's alleged victim became more concerned after hearing about the nearby beheading of a woman. It is believed she went back to investigators. And now Muriithi is charged with making terrorist threats and his bond is set at $1 million.

Today the man accused of Thursday's beheading in Moore is expected to be formally charged, but not with terrorism. Alton Nolen had recently converted to Islam. His mother apologized online to the families of the woman killed and of the survivor in the attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOYCE NOLEN, MOTHER OF BEHEADING SUSPECT: My son was raised up in a loving home. My son was raised up believing in God. That's what he believed in. My son was a good kid. You know, I know what they're saying that he done, but I'm going to tell you this, that's not my son. There's two sides to every story. And we're only hearing one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN's Pamela Brown joins me now in Washington with more on -- what do you even know as far as why Nolen allegedly beheaded this woman?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: We're learning from law enforcement officials, Brooke, that Alton Nolen, he spent time watching beheading videos online sometime before he allegedly severed the head of one of his co-workers in Moore, Oklahoma, as you just talked about. He stopped only when his boss shot him. And according to law enforcement source, they say that Nolen was told that he was in trouble at work at Vaughan Foods for disruptive behavior trying to convert his co-workers to Islam. Shortly after that, he allegedly returned to work Thursday with a knife and targeted co-workers at random.

And we're learning from law enforcement officials, Brooke, that Nolan told investigators during the interview after he was shot that he felt oppressed at work and that he was particularly upset about not getting a pay raise. He apparently said that he wasn't motivated by any terrorist groups. And at this point the investigators say the beheading was actually not an act of terrorism but an isolated act of workplace violence. And while police maintain that this was, Brooke, there is a trail of disturbing red flags indicating that he is a radicalized Muslim. On his FaceBook page he -- under the alias Jah'Keem Yisrael he posted a picture of a beheading, an image of Muslim extremists, along with several anti-American rants.

So you might be asking, why are police ruling out terrorism? Plain and simple. One reason could be, Brooke, prosecutors want to get a conviction and it's much easier to prove murder than it is to prove a terrorism conspiracy.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. Do you have any idea if there's any kind of connection between these two men? BROWN: At this point, officials I've been speaking with say there's no

indication that there's connection between these two men. Of course they're going to want to know if their -- if they made contact with one another, if they attended the same mosque. But at this point, it could just be a bizarre coincidence that you have a threat of a beheading, an actual beheading in close proximity at the workplace. It could just be as simple as just a coincidence, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Pamela Brown, thank you very much. And now to this case. It has left Muslims defensive about their region. Not for the first time. But, obviously, as Pamela was just pointing out, certainly in Oklahoma they have an ally of churches now rallying for Islam and insisting this is a religion of peace. I'll talk with members of both religions in Oklahoma. Coming up next, their reaction, what they're telling their communities in the wake of this.

Also, protests paralyze Hong Kong as demonstrators are fighting for the right to choose their own leaders. You will hear from the leader of this moment. We just talk to Christiane Amanpour ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The beheading case in Oklahoma has put the Muslim community on guard certainly in that particular state. There is a call for peace and it's not just coming from mosques. It is also coming from churches. So joining me now from Oklahoma City, the Reverend Dr. William Tabbernee, who is executive director of the Oklahoma Conference of Churches, and Adam Soltani (ph), from the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

So, gentlemen, welcome to both of you.

REV. WILLIAM TABBERNEE, EXEC. DIRECTOR, OKLAHOMA CONFERENCE OF CHURCHES: Thank you.

ADAM SOLTANI, OKLA. CHAPTER, COUNCIL ON AMERICA-ISLAMIC RELATIONS: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Mr. Soltani, I'd love to start with you here. Just first reacting to now the news of this second case in just several days. Your reaction? What are you telling your community? Is this something you're even talking about in your community's mosques?

SOLTANI: Well, absolutely. You know, first of all, this is shocking and saddening for us as a faith community. You know, we believe our faith stands for peace and love and compassion and we try to spread that throughout our state and country. And we condemn this from the very beginning and we'll continue condemning such actions because we don't believe they're representative of our faith. And we've warned our community centers to be on alert because we've received a lot of hate mail and hate phone calls over the last few days, so we're very concerned about possible anti-Muslim backlash, hate crimes or the sort. And the saddest part of this all is that there are about 40,000 Muslims in the state, been here about 30 years, contributing members of society and these two men, with extreme ideologies, do not reflect our faith at all and it's sad that people are taking it as a reflection of our faith when indeed it's not that.

BALDWIN: I'm sorry to hear that about the hate mail and that really speaks to the broader -- the broader community, the broader question, which, Reverend Doctor, and this is perfect for you, I mean here you have your community members, obviously some people -- I'm not saying they're your colleagues or associates, but are associating, you know, these horrendous beheadings with Islam. What's your message to that?

TABBERNEE: The sadness is that people are making that leap and, as far as we're concerned, we don't know what motivated Mr. Nolen in particular to take the action, that horrific action that he's taken. But we do know that it's not an officially sanctioned religiously sanctioned act. And so our sadness is that whatever justification is being linked religiously then reflects upon the Islamic community as a whole. And we have a very, very good relationship with the Islamic community here in Oklahoma and from all of the experiences that we've had, we understand that in essence it is a religion of peace.

BALDWIN: Reverend Doctor, let me just stay with you. I'm just curious, I'm not as familiar with the religious -- the makeup of the religious community in the greater Oklahoma City-Moore area. What is it like?

TABBERNEE: Right. Well, we have very many various Christian denominations, local churches, but we also have a very strong interfaith community. For instance, the Oklahoma Conference of Churches has interfaith partner members. We have a religions united committee that includes Buddhists, sheikhs, Islamic society, the Jewish community, et cetera. And we together do a lot of work. We try to build bridges of understanding and friendship and tolerance. You might be interested to know that just last week, not this Sunday but the Sunday before, we had almost 300 youth participate in an interfaith youth tour and we visited the Hindu temple and we visited the Christian church and we visited a mosque.

BALDWIN: That's wonderful. That's wonderful. I mean I remember being in Moore, what was it, last year covering the aftermath of that horrible tornado.

TABBERNEE: Right.

BALDWIN: And I think my biggest takeaway from being in Moore was the faith of these families, all these different families, you know, I had the fortune to meet.

But, Mr. Soltani, let me just end with you. I mean just -- hearing about young people, what are you doing in your community to discourage this kind of behavior among young people?

SOLTANI: Well, you know, we focus on teaching the faith and our community leaders, they focus on teaching the essence of the faith which is peace, dialogue, love, compassion, understanding. And going beyond that, we're heavily involved. Our organization, Council on American-Islamic Relations, we make it a point to be heavily involved with the local interfaith community here in Oklahoma City, as well as in other metropolitan areas throughout the state, because we believe the only way we can combat these type of extreme ideologies is to work together as people of faith and not just Muslims but all faiths together.

BALDWIN: I truly appreciate both of you gentlemen sitting there side by side in Oklahoma City talking about what is so, so important in your community and I think in communities across the country right now.

Adam Soltani and Revered Doctor William Tabbernee, thank you so much.