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Market Images Released; Al Qaeda Claims Responsibility; Ex- Mentor Condemns Massacre, Saudi Flogs Activist; Anti-Muslim Groups

Aired January 14, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm John Berman in Paris, along with Brooke Baldwin in New York. This is CNN's special live coverage of some extraordinary developments here in Paris today.

We have some video to show you. It is disturbing. Pictures from inside last week's deadly hostage standoff inside the Paris kosher supermarket. Again, a warning, these pictures could be distressing for some of you to look at.

In these surveillance video stills, stills of this video, you can see the attacker clearly, Amedy Coulibaly, with what appears to be a handgun. You see him wearing what looked to be fatigues. Also, what appears to be a bullet proof vest.

Other images show terrified employees huddled together. Others forced apparently to take down the security cameras that were observing them. Then there are corporations. The four people killed by Coulibaly scattered across the floor of that supermarket. A baby stroller is there, abandoned in the aisle of the market. You can see people huddled together and groceries just strewn about through the aisles. And all of this unfolds just hours before police stormed that market and killed the gunman.

Joining me now to talk about this, these new images, CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen.

And, Fred, these are tough to look at.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they're very tough to look at, and at the same time they do tell us a lot of interesting things about what actually happened there inside the supermarket. First of all, we find out that Coulibaly, apparently the whole time, was wearing that bullet proof vest. And it appears to be the one that he also wore in that so-called suicide video that he took where he pledging allegiance to ISIS just a couple of days or whenever he record, but it was found after he was killed.

The other interesting thing in all that is that stroller standing around there. You always wonder, where does that come from? Where is there a stroller standing around? But we do know that there was a family hiding out in the freezer with a little baby that we then saw later. So it does -- it shows a lot. It shows a lot of how things were inside that supermarket. How dire the situation was inside that supermarket. There's one image also that appears to show Coulibaly standing in front of what might be an employees or maybe even one of the guests, one of the customers at the supermarket, with the customer sort of - with his hands onto the wall, which seems to show that he did sort of kept a very tight regimen. He did keep an eye on these people certainly after one of them tried to take a gun away from Coulibaly and shoot him. That weapon jammed and Coulibaly then shot that person, which might be one of the corpses --

BERMAN: Yes, that man ended up dead.

PLEITGEN: Yes, that we saw.

BERMAN: You know, it's so interesting. This really fills in the time line, doesn't it? We know that they now tried to take down the surveillance cameras. And as this is all happening, we know that there were all those people huddled together in the freezer downstairs.

PLEITGEN: And the interesting thing about the surveillance cameras is, he tried to get them to take down the surveillance cameras because he obviously wanted to destroy any sort of evidence that might have shown what actually happened there. He didn't know that the recordings from the cameras apparently were remote. So they were recording somewhere else. Everything that happened until then is, as we can now see, is clearly visible.

BERMAN: And, of course, somewhere in this time line too he forced someone to call, you know, call the media to get his message out. So fascinating. So chilling. Clearly heavily armed. Clearly prepared this attack. And your heart goes out to all the people that were inside that store at the time.

PLEITGEN: Absolutely. Yes.

BERMAN: All right.

PLEITGEN: And the interesting thing was also he called -- he called the media apparently because the media he was reporting, BFM (ph), one of our affiliates, was apparently - was reporting that no one had died in the siege so far. But at that point he'd already killed four people. And that was the record that he wanted to set straight, which is absolutely outrageous that he wanted to make sure everybody know that he'd already killed four people.

BERMAN: It's just simply evil.

PLEITGEN: Yes.

BERMAN: And now we see the images, that still, with those bodies so clearly on the floor. Frederik Pleitgen, thank you so much for being with us. I really appreciate it.

Another major development in to tell you. There is now a claim of responsibility for the slaughter that happened right behind me at the offices of "Charlie Hebdo" one week ago. We have video that was just deemed authentic by the United States. In this video, in this claim of responsibility, a commander for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula boasts that it was his terror group, AQAP, that masterminded this attack and that the Kouachi brothers, quote, "accepted and fulfilled orders."

This al Qaeda commander you're looking at goes on to say, quote, "we clarify to the Islamic world that the one who chose the target, laid the plan, financed the operation, and appointed it's emir (ph) is the leadership of the organization. So, who is this leader exactly that this man on the video is referring to? Well, we believe that would be Anwar al Awlaki, the American-born Muslim cleric that's dead. He was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen more than three years ago.

I want to talk more about this and its implications

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh has been studying this video all day, what's inside it.

And, Nick, the Kouachi brothers, CNN learned overnight, got funding, were given as much as $20,000 by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula apparently when they left Yemen as far back as 2011. $20,000. What more do we know about this money trail?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that is what investigators are now pouring into. The question really is, how much of that money remains to fund the attacks? Did a relationship continue after the brother or brothers -- it's not entirely clear who was where when, although one witness says Said was in Yemen from 2009 to 2011 and that Cherif, according to some U.S. officials, may have traveled using his brother, Said's, passport into Yemen in 2011 as well.

After that point, though, when the brothers seem to have left, and al Awlaki shortly after was killed by a U.S. drone strike, did the relationship with al Qaeda in Yemen stop? Did they go and become a sleeper cell in France and sort of stop - comminute to receive funding, logistics support, having been given a target to attack? Or did it actually turn out that they maintained that relationship? That's what investigators are going to be trying to search into heavily at the moment.

There's an interesting other element to this video too. While they're quite clear that they want the names of the (ph) leadership, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, like Ayman al Zawahiri, the successor to bin Laden, to be associated with the targeting of this operation and Awlaki with the operational side too. They don't claim responsibility for the man you were just discussing, Amedy Coulibaly's attack on the kosher grocery store. They say it was purely coincidence, good fortunate of timing. Obviously terrifying words to hear for those who lost people in those attacks. But Coulibaly, we know, pledged allegiance to ISIS. So almost competing jihadi groups, frankly. People, obviously, going to try and work out exactly how it came to be that these people chose to attack on the same day.

John.

BERMAN: And they call everything that happened here, Nick, the blessed battle of Paris, which is simply diabolical terminology when you think about it. Nick, there was a development here in Paris today. Officials in France

tell us they've detained some 54 people for defending or glorifying or condoning terrorism, which is against the law here. But specifically what accusations are they facing?

WALSH: Well, certainly most individuals, in relation to those offenses, and I am not totally familiar with the cases in Paris, but that is simply because of suggested links to other individuals and the continued investigation into what happened in Paris at that time. But people now, of course, will be looking to broader link across the world, and particularly investigators that link to Yemen.

There are also some suggestions that maybe Cherif Kouachi did in fact travel to Syria. One French source suggesting that may have occurred in August. There's the continued search for the partner of Amedy Coulibaly, Hayat Boumeddiene, who seemed to have crossed into Syria as well. There are a lot of strands now, a lot of concerns that potentially other individuals may have been activated inside France and that's what investigators are most concerned about now, John.

BERMAN: And they're pulling on those threads right now to find out what they can. Merely speaking out in support of terror in France can get you a jail sentence anywhere from 18 months to seven years. Very interesting now, cracking down on that kind of -- what they call hate speech.

Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much for being with us to talk about all these developments today.

Brooke, let's go back to you in New York.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Berman, thank you so much. Don't go too far, we're coming back to you in Paris.

Meantime, brand new reaction today from the man who once mentored one of these terrorist brothers. He talks about Cherif Kouachi's obsession with violence and whether he intended to target civilians.

Plus, Saudi Arabia, which condemned the Paris attacks, is now accused of flogging an activists, all in the name of religion. Hear the allegations against him, coming up.

You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

The man who once mentored one of the French terrorist is now condemning the massacre his former student committed. Farid Benyettou, now out of prison after a terrorism conviction, spoke to French TV recently. According to this documentary by France 3 Network, Benyettou is this radical cleric who turned the younger of these brothers, Cherif Kouachi, once a self-described pot smoking wannabe rapper into this extreme diehard. Kouachi was one of a group of Benyettou's followers from the 19th district of Paris. We've talked about this. They trained. They got together in this one Paris park.

But today Benyettou says he is reformed. What's more, he revealed he spoke with Cherif Kouachi all of two months ago, and that it was clear to him Kouachi had become increasingly radicalized. Let me quote this interview, it was in French, with Benyettou. This is part of what he told this network. "With him, he always came back on the same subject. Anything to do with combat, he was fascinated by that. His understanding of the religion was limited to that, nothing else. Good report with the neighbor, he didn't know of it. The behavior of the Muslim in everyday life, he didn't know it. The relationship with God, it didn't interest him. It was anything to do with combat, that is all that interested him.

With me now, Karen Greenberg, the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University Law School.

Karen Greenberg, nice to have you back.

KAREN GREENBERG, DIRECTOR, CENTER ON NATIONAL SECURITY, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: It's nice to be back.

BALDWIN: Beginning with this point, this fixation, this obsession with violence, there are those who are fixated, there are those who take that fixation and it materializes into violence. What is the catalyst that drives some to commit such atrocities?

GREENBERG: Right. And there's no one answer to that question, but there are a couple of things to look for. One is, it's often something personal that happens in their life that -- either a frustration or a cause of anger or humiliation and something -- alienation from the society, alienation from something they want to belong to and that that becomes the catalyst. Sometimes it's opportunity. Sometimes they see a target, they see an opportunity to do something or they get -- see a way to go to a foreign land to fight, whatever it is. It's very hard to predict what's going to happen and which way it's going to turn. There are those individuals who will commit violence given certain circumstances that otherwise might not be violent.

BALDWIN: You know, one of the catalysts that fascinates you in particular, just because of all your work on this, the Abu Ghraib - the photos from Iraq, from 2004. And this is something that's sort of out in the either (ph) as far as part of what apparently inspired the Kouachi brothers. I mean that was 10 years ago.

GREENBERG: Right. Ten plus years ago.

BALDWIN: Ten plus.

GREENBERG: And for us that may seem like a very long time. But from the point of view of people who are in this larger narrative of looking at Islam, looking at creating a caliphate, these photographs have been potent since the very beginning. It's one - and this administration knows it. I mean they've been reluctant to release more of these photographs, even in very recent court challenges. And the reason is, for these individuals, the story isn't over. You know, Iraq is still going on. Guantanamo is still going on. And this narrative has been potent and pervasive, and particularly in Europe since 2004.

BALDWIN: Maybe that was part of the anger, or whatever word you want to use, for these Kouachi brothers. But at the same time, when you read into their background, especially when you hear from this legal source with understanding of what sent the younger Kouachi brother to prison in 2005, apparently at that time, before he was hardened, meeting some of these people who helped in this radicalization process, this source said that he was against -- forgive me -- that he was not drinking and smoking at the time. That he didn't want to go to Iraq to die there. And my question then is, if we know that there is this hardening in prison, what's being done to keep these people apart?

GREENBERG: Well, you know, actually the attention to radicalization in prison has been very strong throughout the west and has a strong tradition in France, where they've understand the threat in France and Spain and elsewhere of radicalization in prison. And so I think this is something they're going to have to look too, how does this happen?

BALDWIN: Yes.

GREENBERG: Is there actually a way to stop this? Often in prisons, Islamic extremist, convicts will be put together in one way, shape or form. You know, maybe they have to rethink how this is done.

BALDWIN: Yes.

GREENBERG: But we're going to learn a lot about this in the days to come.

BALDWIN: Karen Greenberg, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

GREENBERG: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Next, a young blogger in Saudi Arabia reportedly sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam. After Saudi Arabia condemned the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks as incompatible with Islam. That story is next.

Plus, anti-Muslim protests in Germany drawing thousands. The question is this, are these fringe groups or part of a bigger movement in Europe? We'll discuss that. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Saudi Arabia, one of a number of nations quick to condemn the "Charlie Hebdo" terror attack as, quote, "incompatible with Islam," well, they are now accused of carrying out its own act of brutality in the name of religion. The public flogging of the Saudi activist reportedly captured by this amateur video. According to Amnesty International, the man's wife, Raif Badawi, was hit 50 times by a cane as a crowd watched. This draconian spectacle, the first of 20 sessions. This is to be repeated every single Friday until the sentence of 1,000 lashes is fulfilled.

What's the alleged crime? Answer, insulting Islam in a blog that his wife says was meant to encourage discussions about faith. CNN international's Becky Anderson joins me with more on this.

And when you hear 1,000 lashes, be specific. I mean what exactly did this man write?

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, the site was called "Free Saudi Liberals," Brooke, and was set up to encourage debate in political and - on political and religious matters in Saudi. It is unclear exactly what he was indicted for. Suffice to say that we understand the activities (INAUDIBLE) virtue of police may have been being discussed. The Saudi foreign ministry have refused to comment to CNN on Badawi's case saying it is a legal not a political issue. Well, we would have contacted his lawyer to try and get more detail on the case, but he too is in prison for breaking allegiance, quote, "to the ruler, offending the judiciary and founding an unlicensed organization." So difficult to get detail, but you're right to point out, at this point it is nearly Friday, 20 past 11 here today on a Wednesday. Friday in, well, 48 hours' time he will be lashed again and then lashed again 19 consecutive Fridays.

BALDWIN: How, Becky, how is the international community responding to this?

ANDERSON: Well, the governments of Germany and Norway, amongst others, have issued statements condemning the lashing of Badawi. U.S. officials have also called on Saudi officials to withdraw the sentence and review his case. But here's the rub. When CNN asked whether the State Department is prepared to put pressure on the Saudi government to do more than take issue with the case, they reverted to the line that the U.S. relationship with Saudi is an important one. It has to be said, Canada, which offered his wife asylum in 2013 incidentally, has also been accused by some as being somewhat lame in its condemnation. Vigils there being held for Badawi. No response other than an original statement as well from the Canadian government.

BALDWIN: Becky Anderson, we'll stay in touch with you and see if the lashes continue or if the pressure will be enough to stop it. I appreciate it. In Abu Dhabi tonight for us.

Next, just in, we are getting word exactly how many copies of the controversial magazine are coming to the United States. That magazine being "Charlie Hebdo."

Plus, back here at home, one person lost her life, more than 80 people are recovering, after smoke filled a tunnel in the D.C. metro. Passengers had to self-evacuate. That's coming up.

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BERMAN: I'm John Berman, live in Paris.

The terror attacks in this beautiful city have inspired sympathy for the people of France from all around the world. These attacks, though, are also generating anger, fear, and also some violence against Muslims. Here, in France, there have been dozens of anti-Muslim attacks in the last week and there have also been demonstrations across Europe. Some 25,000 people turned out this week for a rally by the anti-immigrant group in the German city of Dresden. Now the group is called Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West. This was the 12th and biggest march they've had there. The first was in October. That started with 350. So they went from 350 to 25,000. Police said Monday's crowd hit 18,000.

Critics say the group is exploiting the tragedy here in Paris. They're trying to recruit new supporters. Now this rally, the anti-immigrant rally, was met by a pro-immigrant rally who wanted to make their point.

Refugees are welcome here. That is what they were chanting. Those are dueling messages clearly right now face to face all across Europe.

We're joined here by CNN's Phil Black. Phil is with me in Paris.

But you just came from Dresden. You were at this rally with thousands and thousands of people. So, I know people in the United States are wondering, is this a fringe group of people, because when you talk about 20,000, that doesn't sound too fringey.

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, it's a big group, John. I mean in Germany there is an established neo-Nazi element. A far right movement. But this is different. This is far more main stream. At this protest on Monday night, we saw families, parents with children. It was all very happy, really quite civilized, all very relaxed, no threat of violence or anything like that. But these are people who very strongly believe that Islam is a threat to their way of life, a threat to German culture.

BERMAN: You know, it's interesting, we called them anti-immigration rallies on the one hand, but it's not so much about immigration or job-taking here, these are anti-religion rallies in a way.

BLACK: These are really focused against Islam. Islam and a fear of it, to a significant extent, is the pillar of this movement. And it is interesting to note that it has really taken root in this country.

BERMAN: In Germany.

BLACK: In Germany, and particularly in this region, where there is a very low immigrant population. It's less than 2 percent.