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Man Haron Monis is Hostage Taker in Australia; More Hostages Escape Cafe; Live coverage from Australia

Aired December 15, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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


SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now as to motive, I am told that this appears to be domestic at this time. There is no federal involvement in this case. Local authorities are handling this as the situation plays itself out. But they're trying to negotiate with this person, the suspect, to get him to come out of the house. That's what's happening at this hour.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Sadly, this type of crime always seems to happen around the holiday time. Right?

CANDIOTTI: Sadly. All too often.

COSTELLO: Susan Candiotti, thanks so much. The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello, thank you so much for joining me. We begin this hour with a gut-wrenching drama now playing out in Sydney, Australia.

(BEGIN VIDECLIP)

COSTELLO (voice-over): Police say this gunman, seen in a grainy image, walked into a cafe and took everyone inside hostage. He has two demands, a phone call with Australia's prime minister and a flag representing the terror group ISIS.

Here's how the ordeal has unfolded over the last 16 hours. At 9:30 a.m. local time, a woman reported a man carrying a bag she described as suspicious. Minutes later, this man entered the cafe and took approximately 20 people hostage. Fast forward more than six hours, and some of the captives escaped. First three men ran to safety, and then two women managed to escape. We've also heard from an employee at the cafe who fled in the opening moments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this point I was thinking something is definitely off. Then, a few moments later they hung a closed sign on the door and told us all to leave. Then just as I was about to leave the lady next to me screamed out "he has a gun."

(END VIDEOCLIP)

COSTELLO (on camera): So, let's begin our coverage in Sydney with reporter Kathy Novak. Tell us more, Kathy.

KATHY NOVAK, REPORTER: Well, we are learning now it's about 2:00 a.m. here in Sydney. And officials who are close to the operation are telling us that they have identified that this hostage taker, he's the man very well known to authorities here by the name of Man Haron Monis, a self-proclaimed Sheikh Haron, he calls himself. And he came to the attention of authorities. Starting back in 2007 he was being convicted of writing offensive letters to the families of soldiers who died while fighting in Afghanistan. He has been fighting those charges all the way up until last year and he has been convicted on those letter-writing charges but actually is currently on bail on two other very separate serious charges.

The first he is accused of being an accessory to the murder of his ex- wife and the second he's also charged with the sexual assault related offenses which are related to the services he claims to provide as a self-proclaimed spiritual healer. So certainly very well known to police and the media here in Australia and this is all unfolding in terms of the identity of this hostage taker as we speak.

COSTELLO: So, how many people are still inside the cafe, do we know? Kathy, can you still hear me? All right, we've lost Kathy Novak. But we understand it's less than 20 people still being held inside that cafe. Police are just waiting the gunman out hoping that he becomes exhausted and lets the hostages go. Let's talk more about this with former FBI agent Foria Younis who worked on the joint terrorism taskforce here in New York. Thank you so much for coming in. I appreciate it.

FORIA YOUNIS, FORMER FBI AGENT: My pleasure, Carol.

COSTELLO: So we now know who the suspect is. We know he has a criminal record. He's a self-described spiritual advisee. Clearly a lone wolf?

YOUNIS: Yeah, lone wolf inspired by maybe some various groups around the world. ISIS being one of them. But he clearly, Carol, is a person who seems to be on the edge of society. The amount of - I think he's got 30 pending assault, sexual assault charges, he's got a pending case of accessory to murder. I don't think he's part of any mainstream Muslim group in Australia. I think he's a guy that's been on the edge of society and is almost self-radicalized to some degree, but clearly someone who is a failure in mainstream society.

COSTELLO: So he had two people this was yesterday, he had two people hold up a flag that said "There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger." He also wants to talk to Australia's prime minister, he wants an ISIS flag brought to the store. Is this the kind of person ISIS wants?

YOUNIS: Yeah, so several little points on that question there. So, the flag is a very mainstream Muslim prayer. So every Muslim probably, you know, uses that as their main Muslim prayer so that's kind of common. But this ISIS, I don't even think he was strongly affiliated with ISIS, but he might have been inspired by what ISIS has been saying, you know, over the last few months.

COSTELLO: Inspired. But that clearly is what ISIS wants. It doesn't really care, right? YOUNIS: Oh, no, I don't think they care whether this guy is mentally

ill, whether he's on the fringe of society or not. They love the terror aspect of what he's accomplished. Some people called him a wannabe this morning, but he's more than a wannabe. He has succeeded in what ISIS and maybe other terrorist groups want, and that is to put terror into society. I mean as you know, ISIS a month or two ago released kill civilians on the streets, use knives, rocks, guns, whatever you need to to kill civilians." And this is the type of acts that ISIS wants to happen all over the Western world, and so they're probably sitting back enjoying what's going on.

COSTELLO: And I want to go to our justice correspondent Evan Perez. He is in Washington. He has more information on this suspect. And I suppose he learned from ISIS or took a cue from ISIS as far as social media use goes.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. This guy has been very active on social media, Carol. He's been ranting about the U.S. airstrikes against ISIS and against the participation of Australian forces. The Australian Air Force has been conducting some of these bombings in Iraq and Syria against ISIS, and so he is -- has been speaking out against that. Ranting against U.S. oppression and advocating frankly, for ISIS.

And it's kind of interesting, because the Australians in recent months have been pushing some very aggressive laws to counteract some of the radicalization because they've had I think up to 250 people have gone to join various militant groups in either Iraq or Syria. And some of them have come back, dozens have come back, Carol. And so they've pushed some of these laws which one of them is to make it a crime to advocate terrorism. And another one is to make it a crime to even travel to certain conflict zones. These are - these are laws not even the United States and other countries have been able to pass so the Australians have been active very aggressively against this issue, and so it's interesting that he was so active on social media, speaking out. Apparently these laws had not been passed by the time he was doing this.

COSTELLO: So, Foria, how do negotiators get him out thereof? They have this knowledge now. That's helpful, right?

YOUNIS: Yes, so I mean as a hostage, I don't want to give too much about what the police are doing, you know, just for the safety of the hostages, but obviously cutting back a lot of this media, making sure that whatever is filtered out to the media - in the Mumbai attacks, as was said earlier, the terrorists were using the media and deciding what to do based on what was going on in the media. So for the safety of the hostages the police officers have to act in what's best.

At some point what we know will happen is, the hostage taker at some point does become more and more tired. Especially since there's only one individual, as it appears to us. So time and making sure that every hostage can come out safely, those are all very important things and controlling what the hostage taker receives in terms of information, food, water, other things, are obviously some tactics that can be used? COSTELLO: And just going back to the social media aspect of this,

Evan. Earlier there were four videos posted on YouTube, one of them depicted -- one of the hostages actually communicating demands to authorities. But those YouTube videos were quickly taken offline. This guy also had a Facebook page. Is that taken down, too?

PEREZ: Right. They've taken down a lot of his social media accounts, Carol, because obviously, they don't want to help him get his message out. At the same time, they are also - this is also something that the FBI here, U.S. Intelligence agencies are also combing over to help Australian authorities in their investigation. Obviously, they want to know, they believe that he's acting on his own, but if he had any help, if there's anybody who might have known about this ahead of time they'd like to know that as well.

COSTELLO: U.S. citizens in Australia were warned to be careful. Can you get into that a little bit for us, Evan?

PEREZ: Yes, well, so last night our time, as this was going down, one of the first things that happened was an effort to make sure that U.S. personnel -- because the U.S. Consulate is just a block or so away from this cafe so that was the first thing that happened, and secondly, they were very concerned about whether there might be U.S. citizens either in the cafe being held hostage. We still don't know whether or not any U.S. citizens were involved there, but obviously this is a big tourist destination, it's summer down there, it's a big travel season for American tourists, to go down to Australia, so that was one of big - one of the big concerns.

And they've been warned, Carol, the U.S. Consulate there in Sydney has warned people to make sure that they are aware of their surroundings, to make sure that they take their own personal security in mind, don't go anywhere where you might -- where something bad can happen.

COSTELLO: And a final question to you, Floria (sic). Because we only hear about the lone wolves or "successful," but there are many other lone wolves that I would suppose authorities are able to stop. Tell us about that.

YOUNIS: Yeah, so, I mean even with this investigation, you know, Australia in the last few months has been taking a lot of proactive measures to get a lot of these dangerous people off the streets so worldwide, I mean there's a lot of cooperation between the FBI and other police forces across the world. So worldwide we try to be as proactive as possible through intelligence, analyst, and all of these other techniques that we have to try to detect not only who is possibly an extremist, but who is going to take the next step and do some violent act, you know, based on their ideology and their beliefs. So the cops and the police try to do as much as they can to prevent some of these dangerous people. Sometimes they do slip through, though, and that's, I think, maybe what happened in this case. That there was one guy that was clearly criminally on the edge of society. But, you know, obviously they didn't know that he was going to move forward and take a step like this.

COSTELLO: Foria Younis, Evan Perez, and Kathy Novak, thanks so much to all of you, I appreciate it. Of course, we'll stay on top of this breaking situation in Sydney, but still to come in the NEWSROOM, a radio host in shock when the hostage inside the candy shop calls him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You'll have to bear with me. It's not impossible. I'm currently talking off air to the same young person I was talking to in the last hour. We just have to take a break. I cannot put this person to air, it would be irresponsible, but I need to hear what he has got to say. So, I'm just going to take a break. You'll just - with (INAUDIBLE), We'll tell you on the line when I'm coming back, but I'm talking to a person off air from inside the Lindt Cafe.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right, I want to take you live to Sydney, Australia, right now. You see that there are more hostages escaping from that chocolate coffee shop. Earlier, actually, yesterday five hostages managed to escape on their own. We're not sure if the hostage taker is letting the hostages go one by one or if more hostages are escaping. We're looking at this in real time so we're not quite sure what's going on. But we absolutely know that more hostages are escaping that store. And as you can see, police are surrounding them with heavy weaponry so we assume that they are safe as they run out of that building. Kathy Novak is on the scene in Sydney. What more can you tell us about this?

NOVAK: We have just been hearing very loud bangs behind where I am standing. Quick fire, loud noises and a police car has just driven past me. There's a lot of movement happening here. As you say, we are seeing that more hostages have come out of the building and as soon as we got those reports the next thing we heard were very, very loud bangs coming from the direction of the Lindt Cafe, which is not far from where I am standing. We have been ordered off from there area by a police but just behind me is where all of this is unfolding. Where we are seeing more of this hostages coming out of the cafe and then hearing these loud bangs.

COSTELLO: What do the loud bangs sound like to you, Kathy?

NOVAK: Of course we can't confirm exactly what they are from where I am standing, but it sounds like quick gunfire from where I'm standing. It was very loud bangs and they were in quick succession and they happened just after we heard those reports of these hostages leaving the cafe and that was not long after we had also started reporting the identity of the hostage taker. His identity became revealed as a man known very well to police as a self-proclaimed Sheikh who had been facing a string of other charges and is actually currently on bail and had already been convicted of writing offensive letters to the families of soldiers who had died fighting in Afghanistan.

So this is this has all been unfolding just in the last hour and just in the last couple of minutes. As I say, hostages released and right now hearing more very loud bangs coming from the direction of the cafe. COSTELLO: All right, Evan Perez is in Washington, he is helping us

monitor this. And let me remind you, these are live pictures that's happening right now. More hostages are coming out of that chocolate coffee shop in Sydney. Evan, you've been hearing word from some of the hostages inside and some who've already escaped. How did they describe the situation?

PEREZ: Well, Carol, the communications they've had with local media, which is the way the communications have been had and also via these videos that they posted indicates that, you know, they've basically just been describing what this gunman is demanding which is a couple of things. This - he wants a flag, ISIS flag which apparently he forgot to bring with him and secondly that he wanted to have a phone call or communication with the Australian prime minister. The Australian prime minister did not address that when he had his press conference several hours ago saying this was in the hands of the terrorism and Special Forces that are handing the situation there. It looks like we see some people trying to get into a building right now and firing, Carol. I'm not sure what exactly is going on.

COSTELLO: Yes, yes, let's listen into the 7 network in Australia.

SEAN BERRY, CHANNEL 7 REPORTER: If CPR is being conducted on them but look the ambulances are there and they've been here waiting for just this eventuality.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sean, it looks as though this is what they've been planning for. We've had at least six officers, armed officers outside throwing the grenades. They also seem to have night vision goggles on so perhaps the fact that the cafe has been in darkness all this time, they've been managing to plan their attack much more carefully and without the gunman knowing quite so much and they seem to have really stunned him at this point.

BERRY: Well, that's right. Look, there have been police squads here today that I've never seen before in my time as a reporter. We haven't been able to report on their presence a lot but -- and that's -- the police have asked us not to because they didn't want this man inside the cafe to know what was going on. And but they were certainly ready and they were here in numbers. Look, I'm being told now that one policeman has been hurt. This is a very early unconfirmed report at this stage, but I am being told one policeman has been hurt and I will try and firm that up and bring you a few more details on that. Certainly someone is in grave danger just outside of - outside on the street - just outside the cafe being treated at the moment and yet again more ambulances are leaving this zone to head to the cafe to see what they can do.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sean, it's been interesting with the revelations of the identity of this man and his history of violence and we know that he was actually before the courts only last week and he's also on bail for being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife. Maybe that knowledge of the violence of the gunman was something that provoked them into action all that faster?

BERRY: Well, yes, I guess it's been reported from early on that he was known by police. Look, I've covered his various cases before in court, a lot of journalists in Sydney know him by face. He certainly has a history. He has a recent history and it's a significant history. Matters currently before the courts and he served time for matters that he's previously been found guilty of.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sean.

BERRY: Look, police - yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was just going to say, Chris Reason is across the road from the Lindt cafe and he's got some information to give us at this moment. So thank you for that, Sean. We'll cross to Chris Reason now. Chris, what can you tell us?

CHRIS REASON, REPORTER: So, we were just with the police when that operation went down and quite dramatic scenes as you obviously could see from your position as well. I'll detail what I can for you, basically. We first at the whole moment seemed to begin by the escape of by our account about six or seven of the hostages. They ran out from the right-hand side as we were looking at it, the right-hand side of the cafe and flew down the steps and into the arms of the waiting police on the Elizabeth Street side of the cafe. At that point, there was a couple of minutes of silence, a police unit moved in, we could see them in dark uniforms, NVG -- night vision goggles -- on. Looking towards the doors. There was a shot fired. We think at that point, that it was the gunman firing a shot. We heard from one police officer saying that a hostage was down and at that point the police moved in. And we saw a lot of explosive material, flash bangs as they're called, stun grenades to try to disrupt and startle the gunman.

As police units moved in from both sides of the cafe to try and get him before he could do any further damage. Now, very dramatic scenes as we've seen more people pulled out and Sean has reported someone is being worked on quite furiously by medical authorities here on the ground, ambulances have moved in as well. Not a good sign. But we do know one hostage was down and that police are doing everything they can. Emergency services doing everything they can to work on him. But a very dramatic few moments there. All in the last 15 minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chris, Sean said that he had a report that it was a policeman down, but you think it's a hostage?

REASON: I think it was a hostage. I think from where we were, let me just explain, so we're at the channel 7 NEWSROOM directly opposite the cafe. Our massive glass windows look directly into theirs and there are four plate glass windows in the cafe and at number two we thought we saw a -- well, the police think they saw a hostage injured in some way and go down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chris, we're just being told that four people are being stretchered away at the moment. Now, whether they've been hurt or whether they're just being taken away because of their ordeal we don't know but those ambulances are really quite needed at the moment, aren't they? REASON: There have been a lot of ambulances here just down Elizabeth

Street for most of the day prepared for just this kind of eventuality. Police had hoped, obviously, it wasn't going to get to this. They had been negotiating with him, talking with him. Their specialist negotiators have been working on a line of communication since early afternoon and the police and certainly police commissioner down were hoping that they might be able to talk this thing down to resolution. It hasn't happened that way.

I'm not sure what triggered the event. There was a lot of movement within the cafe in the moments just before those escapees broke free. We saw the gunman and we could see him clearly moving his hostages from one side of the cafe to the other, sort of corralling them into one part of the cafe before we saw at the other end of the cafe, as I said, the Elizabeth street side of it, the doors, the side doors fly open and those six, possibly seven people running out. We saw four run down into Elizabeth Street, two run up to Phillips Street and another one run towards Channel 7 diagonally across the road to make his way to safety

Has that antagonized the gunman? Has it caused him to overact, overreact, we're not sure. But any way the police at that point saw that it was their opportunity to move in and a team of what I count were four tactical police marched quietly up the stairs, fully loaded, guns bristling, throwing stun grenades and then went in.

There was a lot of gunfire, a lot of flash bangs and for a period of about 30 seconds the entire place, the Martin Place, four court between our two buildings was lit up as the police went in to do their thing. There was gunfire ringing out from both sides. It was extremely dramatic. Extremely tense. And now it seems to have settled down. Obviously there is an end to this inside the cafe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chris, no sign of the gunman at this stage?

REASON: Say again?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No sign of the gunman? The police haven't brought the gunman out?

REASON: I would think not. I would say he is still in the cafe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, and do you think all the policemen -- obviously some of the policemen are still inside with him. Let's hope all the hostages are out at this point. There's been quite an exodus so perhaps they're all out by and up.

REASON: We are just trying to do the math before when we saw through the day when our cameras were here quite early and we've been watching to - they are trying to work at exactly how many there were in there. As you know the beginning of the day was they were suspected of being up to 50 people captured inside the building. Well, we could only see 15 and after those five escaped mid-afternoon around 4:00 that took it down to about 10. We saw as I say it at about five past two a.m., another six or seven move out. That left two or three still trapped inside with the gunman. The gunman getting agitated at that point. He's lost his bargaining, his negotiation tool, the hostages. He's only got the two there. The police are moving in from both sides. At that point we saw the gunfire exchange and now this is at an end.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, Chris, judging by the way the police are standing around outside, there's no sense of urgency there anymore, is there? It looks like mission accomplished.

REASON: Well, yeah, I think the gunman is down. I think we can accept that. And there is no sense of danger. The police is relaxed as you can see them there in those pictures. Right now their priority will be to work on those that are injured, the hostages, obviously. And that job, obviously, befalls the paramedics that have been on standby now for 16, 17 hours since this began.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A mammoth effort. Chris, thanks very much. We'll cross back to Sean Berry now. Sean is on the street. And Sean, tell us what you're seeing from your angle.

BERRY: Look, the five brigade officers have moved in as well as police officers. It's certainly a lot of panic here. Cars were zipping everywhere at one stage. At the moment, I've spoken to someone inside the court in there and I'm told that ambulance officers tried CPR on two injured people. So that's at least two people in very bad condition presumably shot and ambulance officers have been conducting CPR on them at the moment. And look, there are police, there are ambulance in and out of the street at the moment. There's a siren going off but those gunshots have ended. It appears this siege is over. Out of the blue, out of nowhere it was just gunshots, loud gunshots. Bangs from some sort of explosions, flash bangs from the police and now this.

It's certainly quite stunning after so many hours of relatively peaceful what we are told negotiations with the police. The police say that they'd been on the phone throughout the day with this man, Haron Monis and that they were hoping that they could peacefully negotiate an end to this, but something triggered this. There were hostages running, then the gun shots and explosions and a number of people have been hit. And this is all very fluid at the moment. Earlier reports were an officer had been injured somehow. We've been waiting to firm that up as well but certainly there are people injured here and it hasn't been a peaceful end to this operation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sean, Chris Reason was saying that from his angle it looked like one of the hostages had been injured. Now what you saying two people have been injured and have received CPR, it's possibly a policeman and a hostage.

BERRY: Yes, look, look, potentially. I was told a policeman was injured. I don't know shot. Certainly CPR would suggest two people were shot. It's very unclear at the moment the police themselves aren't quite sure what's happened. But certainly, it's ended, and it's unclear just how many people have been injured. The number seems to be three or four given there were about 15 hostages inside at the time when all of this gunfire was going off and these explosions were happening. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been an incredible time, Sean, hasn't it?

We're talking about nearly 17 hours that this siege has been going on. And as you said, it was very, very quiet for a long time and nothing seemed to be happening and then it's all escalated in the last hour.

BERRY: Yes, it was really, really very sad