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At This Hour

Infamous Iraqi Killer Killed in Military Operation; Tulsa Reserve Deputy Speaks Out; Relief at Last for Loretta Lynch?; Victim's Family Pleads No Death Penalty for Tsarnaev. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired April 17, 2015 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:00:12] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: One of the most wanted men on earth reported killed. Saddam Hussein's key lieutenant, a man with ISIS connections. What does this now mean for the fight against terror?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: It can happen to anyone. The words of the Tulsa reserve deputy who shot and killed an unarmed man as he speaks publicly for the first time. What he says happened that day.

BERMAN: It is time to end the anguish. An emotional plea for the parents of the 8-year-old boy killed in the Boston Marathon bombing. His face still melts my heart. Why they say they do not want Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to get the death penalty.

BOLDUAN: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. We have breaking news for you this morning. Word that one of the most infamous killers in Iraq is dead. Iraqi TV is reporting that Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri was killed in a military operation near Tikrit. Al Douri was a key aide to Saddam Hussein. You can see him there. A serious player. The king of clubs in the U.S. military's deck of cards of most wanted Iraqis. He was part of the insurgency during the occupation and more recently he had been connected to ISIS. He could have been a crucial player in helping ISIS take over huge chunks of Iraq.

BOLDUAN: He's the last of Saddam Hussein's top men to be captured. Let's bring in Hala Gorani from London for more on this. So Hala, Iraqis are calling this a huge moment.

HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: We're still waiting for DNA test results to confirm with 100 percent certainty that this is Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri, but a familiar face I think to many viewers, especially those who watched the early days of our reporting after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

You mentioned he was one of the most wanted by the United States in 2003, was the king of clubs in that deck of cards of 55 most wanted Iraqis. There you see him. He had red hair, red mustache. A recognizable face. In fact, Iraqi TV issued a very graphic photo of a body, saying that this is the corpse of Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri, that he was killed just east of Tikrit that was retaken by ISIS -- by Iraqi government forces and Shiite militia in a convoy along with several other people believed to be his bodyguards.

And he, Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri, was one of the most high profile fugitives still on the loose. One of those 55 in that deck of cards. Now, as we mentioned -- as I mentioned there, we're waiting for those DNA tests to be conducted and for results to come to us and to confirm his identity. But if indeed it is the case that this man has been killed, he was 72 years old. It would be quite a victory as Iraqi forces and their Shiite militia allies are battling for key cities like Ramadi, Tikrit, Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, from ISIS. So this comes at a crucial time in that particular battle.

And you mentioned Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri was thought to be operationally important within ISIS and certainly it's believed that he had some role as well in the establishment of al Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor of ISIS. Back to you.

BOLDUAN: We're going to continue to explore that throughout the hour. Hala, thank you so much. Big news coming out of Iraq for us right now.

Also new this morning, the Tulsa reserve deputy that has been charged with second-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of an unarmed man, he is speaking publicly for the first time. It was earlier this month that Robert Bates says he mistook his gun for his taser when he accidentally shot and killed Eric Harris during an undercover sting. Bates described the moment that he fired that fatal shot to NBC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT BATES, RESERVE DEPUTY CHARGED IN DEADLY SHOOT: Oh, my god. What has happened? The laser light is the same on each weapon. I saw the light and I squeezed the trigger, and then realized and I dropped the gun.

This was not an intentional thing. I have no desire to ever take anyone's life..

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, this interview comes one day after a report that claims that Tulsa sheriff's office employees were told to forge the training records for Bates.

I want to bring in CNN's Ed Lavandera. Ed, a lot going on today. Some big developments here.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. Many people still trying to figure out how a trained deputy, a reserve deputy with Tulsa sheriff's department, could mistake his handgun for a -- a yellow taser for his handgun. The yellow taser was strapped to his chest, the small handgun on his side.

[11:05:00] Mr. Bates described how that mistake could have happened. But it really gets down to the question of his training, and with the "Tulsa World" newspaper report questioning the training and many people wondering whether or not a 73-year-old reserve deputy should have been part of that undercover sting operation.

Mr. Bates was asked about those training records and his own training and he says he was properly trained and well equipped to be on those streets.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BATES: That is not correct. I have a written piece of paper that a Mr. Warren Crindon (ph), now in jail for first degree murder 40 miles east of here in Mayes County, signed off to say I had done a good job.

LAUER: But without getting off on a tangent, you did the training and you can prove that you were certified.

BATES: That is absolutely the truth. I have it in writing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: And what Mr. Bates is referring to there is that the lawyer for Mr. Bates believes one of the sources for this is a former sheriff's department employee who is no longer with the department and is sitting in jail accused of murder. So they are discrediting that witness's.

Newspaper reporters for the "Tulsa World" say that they have four other witness -- or five sources in all that corroborated this story. But all of this very interesting, John and Kate.

In the background here, more than a week ago, we filed an open records request with the sheriff's department asking for personnel records, the training records for Mr. Bates. We were denied those records, saying that the matter was under investigation. But now the sheriff here in Tulsa County is saying, John and Kate, that at least some of perhaps the gun certification records might have been lost. So they are trying to track those down. So these questions still under a great deal of scrutiny.

BERMAN: Indeed, these records key to this discussion. Key to finding out what really happened.

BOLDUAN: The paper trail and where holes are seem to be getting more and more complex and confusing as the questions pile on.

BERMAN: Yes, twisted paper trail. Ed Lavandera, thanks so much.

We have new developments this morning in a Senate delay now of historic proportions. Loretta Lynch waiting 160 days and counting for a vote on her nomination to be Attorney General. She would be the first African-American woman in that post. But right now, politics is standing in the way.

BOLDUAN: There is a heavy dose of politics at play here, we should emphasize, because the delay -- because the delay over Lynch's nomination has little to do with her qualifications. Right now, Senate leaders from both parties indicate a solution might be in the works. Later this hour, we're going to hear from President Obama. He's going to speak live in a press conference. One issue very likely that could be brought up is this battle over his pick to be the next Attorney General.

Let's get over to the White House where Sunlen Serfaty is. So Sunlen, you can expect that could be one of the questions coming up in this press conference. Kind of lay the playing field for us if you will on where things stand on this nomination?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, some on Capitol Hill are calling this purgatory for Loretta Lynch and the holdout really will continue at least until early next week because senators have wrapped up work for the week. They're headed home now for the weekend, indicating that there is potential they'll compromise early next week.

Now, the issue is over this other unrelated issue that's standing in the way of Loretta Lynch's confirmation. That's over this anti-human trafficking bill and the controversial provision in there about abortion, which Democrats are not happy with. Now Democratic and Republican sources say on that human trafficking bill there is potential for compromise. They're working to tweak the language to make it more amenable to Democrats. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell coming out saying he believes that they will move forward to vote on the human trafficking bill. This means that they'll move forward with the Loretta Lynch vote, he says, soon after. On the White House, they have been really ramping up their rhetoric on this. Much more combatative (sic) on their tone. They call this holdup shameful.

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JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: So she's waited now more than twice as long as the previous seven Attorneys General nominees combined to get a vote on the floor of the United States Senate. That is an unconscionable delay and there is no excuse or explanation for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: By CNN's tally, we believe that if she's going to a confirmation vote, Loretta Lynch has enough Republican support to win her confirmation. If, of course, that moves forward to a vote, John and Kate.

As an aside, Harry Reid, the minority leader in the Senate, he has also threatened unilateral, a hardball tactic move that he could potentially force a vote on this if Republicans don't move quickly. John and Kate?

BOLUDAN: Sunlen, thanks so much. When the president's news conference begins, we're going to bring that to you live. That can be happening a little later this hour. A lot of questions facing him today.

BERMAN: They have a lot to say on that subject.

[11:10:00] An Ohio man in court AT THIS HOUR charged with plotting to kill American soldiers, police, anyone in uniform. Where he trained and how he was caught.

BOLDUAN: Take the death penalty off the table. Why the parents of Martin Richard, the young boy killed in the Boston Marathon bombing, are asking that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole -- not be put to death.

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BERMAN: Breaking his silence. Now we're hearing publicly for the first time from the Tulsa reserve deputy Robert Bates. This comes after he was charged with second-degree manslaughter for what he says is the accidental shooting death of Eric Harris.

BOLDUAN: This morning on the "Today" show, Bates apologized to the Harris family for the incident and vowed he that did make a mistake. He never intentionally wanted to kill Harris, that he mistook his gun for his taser. He also showed exactly where both weapons were positioned in relation to each other on his body.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BATES: Sure. You bet. My taser is right here on the front tucked in a protective vest. My gun itself is on my side, normally to the rear. This has happened a number of times around the country. I have read about it in the past. I thought to myself after reading several cases, I don't understand how this can happen.

[11:15:02] You must believe me, it can happen to anyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: He says it can happen to anyone. Let's bring in former NYPD detective and law enforcement consultant, Tom Verni.

Tom, it's really been interesting to lean on your expertise on this because this is an area not a lot of folks know about, about reserve deputies, about what their role is. But specifically this issue of the mistake of grabbing the gun when he wanted to grab the taser. He laid out clearly. The taser was here. His gun is positioned here. How do you explain the mistake?

TOM VERNI, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE: Well, we have talked about this a couple days ago and this was brought up this morning on the show he was on, where generally your taser is not be on the same side as your firearm.

BERMAN: And it wasn't.

VERNI: So if you're a right-handed person, a right-handed shooter, like I am, your firearm is going to be on your right-hand side on your gun belt and the taser is going to be usually on your non-shooting side purposely to differentiate, if you have to reach for it. You're going to have go way over across your body to go and get it.

Now, in his case, he's claiming that his taser was tucked up in his vest. Which is still a considerable difference away from where his firearm is. So, again, with the proper amount of training, it seems unconscionable to me that you could mistake one for the other.

BERMAN: And he is yelling taser, taser, taser, while this is happening.

VERNI: Yes, and while he's reaching for something that is clearly not a taser. That's an unbelievable, tragic error -- and not to say that Mr. Harris was an angel by any stretch of the imagination, but he also didn't deserve to be killed for what he was doing. He deserved to be in jail for a while.

BERMAN: So Bates also laid out some more of the sort of map, the frame work for where he was and what he was doing at this time. I want to play one more piece of sound from the "Today" show. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BATES: Two other cars that were in front. I was the last car, as I always am. I carried the equipment that the deputies use to clear a scene, whatever. I've been involved in several hundred of these. I do clean up when they're done. I take notes. I take photographs. And that's my job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: He says he was the last car. He was way back. He was waiting to go snap photos and this whole mess came to him, which is why he had to use the taser. Wasn't expecting to be there, but he was. Is that plausible to you?

VERNI: Well, it seems as if his role as a deputy was a cleanup role, as he admitted. He would come in, be the cleanup guy. He would take photos and clean up the scene. There was a clearly active scene where you have active police officers there handling this. And there were a number of them. And it seems as if they already physically kind of had him already on the ground, so you would think that if they needed additional assistance, especially from someone who's acting in a support role, that they would maybe ask for it if they couldn't do it themselves.

BOLDUAN: Is that how that works in the heat of the moment? You know, he would lean on -- it was heat of the moment. I was trying to do what I could. We were trying to take this guy out. We did not know at that time that he was unarmed, is what he says. In the heat of the moment, as a reserve deputy, is that their job to wait to get the instruction from other officers?

VERNI: Well, again, you had had on duty, active, full-fledged police officers there that were in the midst of this struggle. They had him on the ground. Yes, the guy is struggling as a lot of perpetrators do when they don't want to be arrested, especially for a gun charge. So he was going to give the cops a hard time without a doubt. And the cops were going to have to use probably large amount of physical force to get him down and maybe even use a taser. But, again, if someone will come in who's supposed to be there as a support role and then start firing a taser around, yes, I would want to clear out of the way and maybe ask for that assistance if you need it.

BERMAN: In your experience, the guys doing that would have been the full-fledged, full, real --

BOLDUAN: The actual --

VERNI: Because I would imagine that there's a good possibility that some of those guys were already armed with tasers as well. So if they saw fit to use a taser, then I think that they would have used it. Unless no one was armed with a taser, and then yes, you could ask for support people to come in. But he took a real big risk going in there. If he's supposed to acting in a support role, he took a big risk getting in the midst of this thing that was unfolding. And now we see the results of that.

BOLDUAN: And now we see the results. But it also speaks to this issue of training, how much training was there? Was there enough? That is a whole separate conversation because there is a complicated paper trail that is in dispute and there's a lot to discuss on that.

Tom, it was great to see you. Thank you so much.

VERNI: Anytime.

BOLDUAN: Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, an emotional request from the parents who lost their 8-year-old son in the Boston Marathon bombing. Why they do not want Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to die for his role in the attack. Why they want him to sit behind bars for the rest of his life.

[11:19:41]

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BOLDUAN: "To end the anguish, drop the death penalty." That is the powerful message this morning from the grieving parents of the youngest victim of the Boston bombing marathon (sic), 8-year-old Martin Richard. His parents, Bill and Denise, they've written a powerful piece in "The Boston Globe" to explain why they now oppose the death penalty for convicted bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

They say this: "The past two years have been the most trying of our lives." They also say now they are urging the Justice Department to bring the case to a close and take the death penalty off the table.

BERMAN: I want to read to you how they explain this difficult decision, because it's very, very moving here. They say, "We understand all too well the heinousness and brutality of the crimes committed. We were there. We lived it. The defendant murdered our 8-year-old son, maimed our 7-year-old daughter, and stole part of our soul. We know that the government has its reasons for seeking the death penalty, but the continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives. We hope our two remaining children do not have to grow up with the lingering painful reminder of what the defendant took from them, which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring."

We want to bring in CNN legal analyst Mark O'Mara. He's a criminal defense attorney. When you read something like that from the victim's family, what effect does that have on the sentencing phase of the trial, this jury that will decide dzhokhar tsarnaev's faith?

MARK O'MARA, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I've done a number of death penalty cases and of course the victim's family interests normally are on the side of as much punishment as you can. And it's understandable that that gut reaction to killing a young one would be to kill somebody else.

I think it should be listened to. I think you can understand what the family is going through. If they've made peace with themselves of the loss of their child, and they're saying no more death, even a death that might be deserved, I think that they should be listened to.

[11:25:06] I think that that's an insight that most of our legislators need to get.

The problem with the death penalty -- it doesn't give closure that people think about when they want it. The studies that have been done with people after having a death penalty imposed on the person who killed a loved one, they don't feel that closure. They don't feel a sense of relief. It's only another death. If they found their place of peace, let them have it.

BOLDUAN: Other victims of this bombing, they feel differently. That's understandable. And the Richard family, they acknowledge that in their statement, that this is very personal to everyone.

I do wonder, with that in mind, Mark, does the jury hear this? Does the jury see this? Has this become part of the penalty phase?

O'MARA: Oh, absolutely. First of all, the penalty phase itself is wide open. The defendant team gets to put on almost anything. The mitigation that they'll put on is wide open. And in the same sense, the victims' families, all of them, have a right to present. So there will be victims' families who want the death penalty, and now there will be at least one victim's family who will say we're OK with a life sentence.

And in the system that it works, understand one concern that they had was that a death penalty, once imposed, demands a certain level of appellate review, which means it demands many more years of uncertainty as to whether or not the case will come back, whether or not additional court hearings will be had. If a death penalty isn't imposed, then he's in jail for the rest of his life. There will be some appeals but very few, and then they have that finality that they want.

And that's worth a lot to a victim's family and, by the way, it is ten times more expensive to put someone to death in this country than it is to keep them in jail until they die of natural causes.

BERMAN: And, Mark, this isn't just any family here. I mean, this family was front and center during this trial. I think this jury is now very familiar with what happened to Martin Richard and this family.

BOLDUAN: His clothes were presented as part of the evidence.

BERMAN: How will the jury react? They may very well hear from the Richards in the penalty phase, in the sentencing phase. How does a jury process a request like that? How could you say no to that family if you're in that jury?

O'MARA: Well, you know, juries are very smart. We just saw that with the Hernandez case. We got some insight into how jurors look and think. We know they think and look at everything, as will this jury. And I think that they will give this family a lot of credit for taking on this role, this idea of forgiveness of sorts. They will take it in context with everybody else.

Not to diminish the loss that the other victims' families go through, but you're right. Losing an 8-year-old son and maiming of your daughter, you would think that these people, among all others, would be the focus point for that type of retribution that you get from the death penalty. And in the same sense, when they say don't do it, maybe we can all learn a little bit about systemic forgiveness -- again, he'll die in prison -- but systemic forgiveness in the face of killing yet another person.

BERMAN: Mark O'Mara, thanks very much. Really, a moving statement from that family. We'll see the effect that it has.

We do have some breaking news we want to tell you about right now. There's been an explosion in Erbil in northern Iraq. This is the Kurdish region. That explosion took place on the same road where the U.S. consulate is in Erbil, also the Kurdish regional government. Erbil is an area in Iraq that has been considered relatively safe over the years. Again, the Kurds control that area. Now we have learned there's an explosion near the U.S. consulate. We do not know yet how bad this damage is, if anyone may have been wounded or killed in this attack. We're going to keep our eye on this going forward. But there's a lot going on in Iraq right now and more violence there.

BOLDUAN: We're going to keep our eye on that.

And also this is ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, a major get. The man who was once Saddam Hussein's No. 2 has reportedly been killed. More on what his role was and what his death will mean now for the war on terror.

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