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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

French Police Hunt for Possible Accomplices; New Issue of "Charlie Hebdo" Released Tomorrow; New Video of Paris Terror Attack

Aired January 13, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: I know, I mean, you know, I'm sure any mother watching would feel the same way, but the truth of the matter is when you're 19, you are not a child and you can't be treated as a child, and you're sure not tried as a child. So that's going to be really tough row to hoe. George Howell, thank you. Appreciate it. George Howell, live for us in Illinois.

The search now is on for the terrorist who not necessary carried out attacks, but certainly were very helpful in making sure the attacks were as deadly as they could be. All of this has security stepped up in Paris. I'm going to give you details of who the gun-toting men are and just how many there are out there and what is exactly they're doing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: As Paris -- as Paris is mourning the victims of last week's attacks, French police are on the hunt for possible accomplices to the heinous crimes. The suspects are believed to be members of the sleeper cell that carried out the attacks. As a result, France is on its highest terror alert level.

10,000 soldiers and 8,000 police are being deployed across the country to beef up security. All of this has an Al-Qaeda off-shoot in North Africa is making brand new stress against France, saying that country will "Pay the cost of its violence on Muslim countries."

In the meantime, French President, Francois Hollande has awarded the slain police officers in last week's attack with Francois National Order of Merit. It happened at a memorial ceremony earlier today. Also, showing their respect, you guessed it and you see what you're seeing. It is a group of NYTD police officers visiting a makeshift memorial for the "Charlie Hebdo" staff and the slain police officers in Paris. And that image played out earlier on this morning in Paris.

And now for a true act of defiance, the brand new issue, the first issue since the attack. The issue of "Charlie Hebdo" is about to hit the newsstand despite the slaughter of about half of the magazine's editorial staff.

These are the surviving colleagues at work drawing the cover of the latest issue. And on the cover is the prophet Muhammad, it's a drawing, it's a cartoon and the prophet is holding a sign that says, Je suis Charlie, I am Charlie, and below the headline in French, "Tout est pardonne" which is "All is forgiven." And also the prophet is shedding a tear.

The magazine will publish three million copies of this magazine, again, set to hit the newsstand tomorrow morning. And CNN's senior media correspondent Brian Stelter has travel to Paris. He is here now with more on this historic, you know, terror attack and story that's playing out since. So the significance of three million copies, how are they pulling this off, Brian?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN'S SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: They are getting a lot of help Ashley, help from rival newspapers and magazines, help from newspapers and companies even outside this country of France, the Guardian newspaper in Britain has contributing money, a press fund, that was (inaudible) by Google is contributing money and they've had a whole of help from neighbors, and as I said, usual rivals.

There was a press conference here earlier today in Paris with some of the editors and there was a loud round of applause from all the journalists in the room when those editors and cartoonists came and speak.

And Ashleigh, I can tell you we've just actually obtained a copy of tomorrow's magazine, a PDF copy of it. We're looking through it now but it looks a lot like last week's issue. This is not an issue that is -- that has blank pages. That's not the kind of tribute that the surviving staff has prepared. Instead, they are putting out the same proud kind of content that they come out with every week, sometimes, (inaudible) and even pornographic perhaps, a cartoon mocking, all of sorts of folks across the spectrum.

We should say this is not an eight-page issue dedicated to mocking or criticizing Muhammad or Muslims or the religion of Islam, it's dedicated at mocking everybody. It's dedicated to mocking the very politicians that are now rallying around it and supporting its freedom of expression. So I guess they were looking through it now. Nothing very surprising in it yet but it looks like the tribute they're making, the statement they're making is by putting out the best issue they could like they would any week.

But of course Ashleigh, it does have a number of references to the attacks that happened last week and we know that they were planning to have some unpublished work from some of the slain cartoonists in it. I think we're probably going to see some busy activities, the newsstands around here early tomorrow morning and people can get their hands on the copy.

BANFIELD: Well, then that's my next question because, you know, it's great that they are going business as usual but this is anything but this is as usual the distribution of that many magazines.

I'm just wondering about the security at all levels from the actual print presses out to those newsstands and I'm assuming overseas as well, how are they securing those who want to actually be part of this chain?

STELTER: What happened early this morning is a great example of this. It's very evocative. The CNN photojournalist who went to the distribution center wasn't allowed to say where it was. It's an undisclosed location about an hour outside Paris and now all those magazines, all those copies are on trucks. They're heading all to the newsstands they'll be at.

And by the way, won't just be in France. So this will be available more widely in other countries and in other languages as well. We found out today that it will be translated into Arabic among other languages and the fact that we've already be able to see a PDF, you know, a digital file of the magazine, I think goes to show this is going to spread much more widely than just the three million copies that are expected to be printed. I think folks all around the world will be able to at least view the online version of this magazine tomorrow.

BANFIELD: I was just going to say three million is the tip of the iceberg with the opportunities online for that as well especially the translation. Brian, I'm just going to cut you short for a moment. Thank you for your reporting and the only reason I'm cutting you short is because we're getting some video into our offices here at CNN, pretty striking. But after the break, we're going to show what we're getting new video, at least new images of that terrible attack on the magazine offices of "Charlie Hebdo", different perspectives and we're going to have that for you in just a moment, coming right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Welcome back everyone. I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

Just before the break, I told you that CNN is now just processing some brand new video that's come into our offices showing a different perspective of last Wednesday's attack on the magazine headquarters of "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris.

You've probably seen several cellphone accounts of what happened from the rooftops where other cellphones were able to capture the Kouachi brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi, as they murdered 12 people in cold blood, eight of them editorial staff, two security and police officers, and others as well.

We've just been processing this video. I want to turn it around for it will be the first time I'm seeing it as well. So let's roll it if we can and at the same time see if it tells us anything different.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Simply extraordinary. If you're just joining us, this is brand new video of the murderous attacks at the "Charlie Hebdo" magazine last Wednesday.

The pictures you're seeing now are, perhaps for the first time, are images of the Kouachi brothers, Said and Cherif, before the images that you are used to seeing. This is at the corner before you saw them jam on the brakes and then unload their weapon into the police officer, whom they executed at point blank range as he lay dying on the sidewalk.

What's also remarkable about the video you're looking at right now, perhaps, two things. Number one, the brazenness after having murdered 11 people in that office building, taking the time to call out in Arabic their slogans and then you can see here, they put on the brakes again and this is the point where many of the videos you've seen up until now show the perspective.

They get out of that vehicle. They open fire on that police officer. You could see the cruiser there about to back up at a high rate of speed. They injure the police officer and then they crossed the street to actually execute him, as I said earlier, at point blank range. This is absolutely remarkable video.

Tom Fuentes is still live with us, our CNN law enforcement analyst. Tom, I'm so struck by the casualness of this escape. This did not seem to be two men who were hell-bent on saving themselves and getting out of a mass murder site.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: No, Ashleigh, they're completely poised, they're completely calm. They've come out of the massacre at the magazine, got in their car, then they encounter the other police car and the police officer, go about their business shooting at that car, shooting at that officer, executing the officer, and then they drive on.

I think what strikes me still watching all these videos and all of the encounters they have with the police is that they have several, which have been pointed out in the past, several encounters and each time the police are so badly outgunned or the police are unarmed that these guys can do pretty much whatever they want on the streets of Paris because they both have military grade weaponry and know how to use it.

And so, they don't have to be super well-trained. They don't have to be trained like a Special Forces team. But they have enough firearms training and enough poise to go about their business in a very professional, from that point of view, business-like manner and carry out these shootings, carry out the execution of the police officer, shoot at the police car that's parked there, then when they're done with that, get back in their car, drive around it and drive on.

BANFIELD: And I'm actually going to hold back on some of these perspectives that I thought I was witnessing before. I'm not exactly sure if that secondary stop was the time that they executed the police officer. It looks like it. But I think that they were actually out of the vehicle for longer. Can I bring in Hala Gorani, if I may, who's live in Paris?

Hala, I couldn't make out what they were saying. I couldn't tell if they were yelling in Arabic or in French. I couldn't make out much out of it. Do you anything more about what they were yelling prior to getting in the vehicle? HALA GORANI, LONDON BASED CNN ANCHOR: Yeah. It was difficult to make it out at first, but then I put some ear buds in and I was able to basically make out at least the first couple of sentences.

"We have avenged the prophet Muhammad" is what I believe one of the two men says over and over again. And this really confirms kind of the story and the account that we heard in the initial aftermath of the massacre.

So what we're seeing there is we're seeing two very calm, very collected, very cool murderers. They're sort of rearranging their weaponry. It looks as though they have some sort of body armor on as well there. And they are getting inside this black Renault Clio.

And as you were describing, Ashleigh, then driving down the street, confronting a police car, and getting into a shootout with that police car then backs off because either they are not armed or don't have the kind of arms that they believe would be enough to confront these two suspects with assault rifles pointed straight at them.

So, this is a new angle. It is another piece of puzzle in terms of the overall picture in the minutes following the massacre at "Charlie Hebdo".

I'm trying to figure out timeline-wise, Ashleigh, whether or not this happen before or after the murder of the police officer. We believe it was after. We believe all the killings had taken place at this stage.

BANFIELD: So this secondary stop where they got out of the vehicle, confronted the police cruiser that was not the point where they had murdered the second police officer. And when I say it's very confusing, they were actually three police officers murdered that they, one of them was guarding the editor and he was killed in the office. The second one was executed point blank range as he lay on the sidewalk mortally wounded at time. And the third one came much later and that was Amedy Coulibaly later on, a different suspect, at a traffic instance where they were moving traffic, a separate instance.

So the second officer -- when I say the second officer, you believe at the point where this video begins, Hala, that execution has already taken place, they had made before it stopped again and then stop the third time?

GORANI: Right, it appears as though they barged into the -- right now on the top of my head going to timeline once again, barge into the "Charlie Hebdo" offices, killed a building maintenance agent. Went off to the second floor murdered 10 people, 8 journalists, 2 others. Among the two we had one police officer assigned to protect the editor of "Charlie Hebdo" and a visitor to the newsroom, went back down were confronted by a police officer, Ahmed Merabet, who was injured, walked up to him and then executed him boldly point blank, as you say, to the head.

Then went back in their car, at that point were confronted by this police vehicle that we see on this new video that out of their car started shooting, and in fact they are images of the windshield of that police car riddled with bullets. So, those two things go together.

And the police car did decided, and you can see on this video, not to confront them with heavy weapon, either they had arms that they considered weren't going to be enough to do that or were not armed.

We don't know that level of detail in terms of how well prepared these police officers were to confront two men with military assault rifles and full body armors. So this is what I'm able to make out from this new video that's in there, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And Hala, I'm going to pause the two of us for a moment and I'm going to ask if we can just rewrap this view from the beginning to the end and listen to it in full without any announces. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: It's hard to know if that final burst of gunfire is coming from the officers toward whom the killers were driving or whether the killers were shooting and driving at the same time. Hala, stand by for a moment. I want to bring Tom Fuentes in on this as well because you've now had a chance, Tom, to see this over probably three or four times. And I'm just wondering if they are any clues or anything that is of use now to the police, given the fact that those two brothers are now, I want to say, long dead but certainly long -- in the aspects of this story they are days long dead. Is there anything else that we can glean from this, the modus operandi, anything else?

FUENTES: I don't think it's providing too much about that. I think you see them calmly actually reloading, if so they've already killed the other officer that was outside on the sidewalk and they have expanded bullets doing all that, when they go back here, you see the driver of the vehicle basically taking the second bullet (ph) from his partner sound to me, the sound was if putting in a new magazine and racking in a new bullet, so that gun would be ready to fire again. And just kind of regrouping preparing for the next battle then they move forward and the next battle is a few yards down the street when they encountered that police officer.

It sounds like there's two different guns or type of guns being shot to me. You hear the very powerful sound of the assault riffles of the terrorist. And it sounds like a lesser caliber gun being fired which possibly would be the pistol of the police officers, if in fact they were shooting.

BANFIELD: To tell you, well, it's lucky, there weren't more officers killed given the brazenness and the shear fortitude that they had to get out of the car facing the police and keep firing.

Tom, I have to leave it there. Thank you everyone for watching but my colleague Wolf Blitzer is going to continue our coverage right after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitz.