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Amanpour

Prince Ali on FIFA Scandal; Blatter Exits but FIFA is Far from Reformed; Lawyer Fights for Innocent on Death Row; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 05, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Will this week's tumultuous FIFA news really lead to reform?

Tonight: my interview with the man who might replace the fallen FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

Also ahead: one man's brave fight against America's death penalty, a champion for justice, Bryan Stevenson.

And see how the amazing American artist Kehinde Wiley is painting the past in the present.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the special weekend edition of our program. I'm Christiane Amanpour in New York this week, and

what a week it's been for world football. But will it all make a better, cleaner FIFA?

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): Sepp Blatter resigned just four days after being voted in as president for a fifth term. Shortly after, U.S. authorities

confirmed Blatter himself was under investigation as part of a wide-ranging criminal case.

His long rise and quick fall simply removes the top of the pyramid that investigators say reeks of corruption and more details are to come. Former

Vice President Jack Warner, one of the 14 people charged by the United States, promises to tell all with, quote, "an avalanche" of revelations,

while another top American FIFA official and key witness, Chuck Blazer, admitted to accepting bribes in newly released documents.

Jordan's Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein has been challenging Blatter all the way and he says he'll stand again if asked.

Dignity needs to be restored to the beautiful game, he told me, from the Jordanian capital, Amman.

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AMANPOUR: Prince Ali, welcome back to the program.

PRINCE ALI BIN AL-HUSSEIN OF JORDAN: Thank you so much, Christiane. It's a pleasure to be back with you.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you -- we'll get to these criminal investigations in a moment.

But first and foremost, the fallout obviously continues. You've got a call potentially by UEFA to split off and try to do its own thing if that

happens.

You have Prince William of Great Britain saying that it is time for the game to reform and for sponsors to do their share. And you even have calls

from Britain to perhaps even boycott the next World Cup.

What do you think of all those?

HUSSEIN: Well, obviously I think that everybody is very, very concerned about FIFA and the way that it's going. Obviously I'm the first person who

went out and tried to make a change with that. And I will continue to do so.

For sure, there are many, many problems but I think that we need to salvage what has happened and we need to take it in a positive direction.

Unity in this organization is very important but we need to unify in a good way, in a progressive way. And I'm committed to doing that.

AMANPOUR: So do you think that sponsors, as Prince William has said, need to reconsider their sponsorship of FIFA under the current circumstances?

Coca-Cola and all the others.

HUSSEIN: Unfortunately, even our national associations, they have all suffered under this situation of present leadership because FIFA acts in a

way sort of like a company rather than a service organization, which it is. It's supposed to be a non-profit and also they sort of drip feed the aid to

countries, but without helping them and giving them the dignity and helping them progress in the world of football.

And I think that you know eventually the only way forward is to have a real change as a collective. It was never about one person and it should never

be about one person.

AMANPOUR: Of course, it is about one person, because this is the person at the head of the organization that so many people now say has, at the very

least, responsibility for what's happening in the organization.

Were you surprised by the indictments last Wednesday?

Do you think Sepp Blatter should have immediately resigned?

HUSSEIN: Well, I was obviously totally surprised. And I think it's sad for the world of football because there are so many great people out there,

working for the benefit of this sport. But for sure. If -- obviously if I was in Sepp Blatter's position, I would have immediately resigned and

probably more so ages ago because, at the end of the day, this happened under his watch.

AMANPOUR: And what do you think, as you say, it happened under his watch, what do you think about his defiance in the face of these indictments?

He's called it "a little storm, not a hurricane," but more than that, he's called it a hate campaign by the West, by the United States and Britain,

sour grapes almost.

HUSSEIN: Yes. I think that that's sort of rather ridiculous. And this kind of politicking is, again, one of the things that is really damaging

for the sport as a whole. And it's a real shame that that's happening.

AMANPOUR: And just as you look forward to the continuing investigation of potentially more charges, potentially Sepp Blatter himself being

questioned, do you think there is, at this moment, a risk or a chance that the World Cups will not be played in either Qatar or Russia in 2018 and

2022?

HUSSEIN: We have to wait for what comes out of these investigations. It's unfortunate that it came to this. And I think that, you know, obviously

everybody has the right to host the World Cup wherever they come from in the world.

But they have to have and respect the basic needs of people and especially in human rights and give dignity to people all over the world. It's a

responsibility.

AMANPOUR: Prince Ali, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

HUSSEIN: Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: So with all the revelations tumbling out now, fast and furious, CNN's top legal analyst and football aficionado, Jeffrey Toobin, joined me

with where the investigation is likely to head next.

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AMANPOUR: So very firstly, Sepp Blatter now, the Swiss authorities have already said that he's not a target of their investigation. But let's now

move to the idea as Transparency International and everybody's calling the actual reform of FIFA from within.

First and foremost, Sepp Blatter is probably going to be there for the better part of the next year, before there's a, you know, completed new

election process.

We have spoken in the past to Alexandra Wrage, who was on the original investigating committee and resigned in protest. This is what she said to

us about why she resigned.

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ALEXANDRA WRAGE, FORMER FIFA GOVERNANCE ADVISER: It certainly appears to the public that FIFA is a power unto itself and that it proceeds without

any real regard to the reputational damage that it's suffering.

And it seems answerable, really, to no one.

We found out fairly quickly -- or at least it was my impression fairly quickly -- that they wanted to cherry-pick through our recommendations.

So we either needed to do much more work, which wasn't going to be possible and wasn't supported by FIFA, or we were at risk of just being window

dressing.

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AMANPOUR: So explaining the hurdles trying to reform and now Sepp Blatter himself is saying I'm staying and I'm going to conduct reform.

How realistic is that?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: It's preposterous. Let me give you an example of something that could be done tomorrow that would be a signal

of reform.

If FIFA hired Michael Garcia, former federal prosecutor here in New York, to do a major investigation of the bidding process for the World Cup, he

did a very lengthy report which FIFA has refused to release to the public.

If they want to show that they've changed, tomorrow they could release Michael Garcia's report. Don't hold your breath.

AMANPOUR: So moving on to the other huge part of this investigation and that is whether Russia and Qatar bid totally and 100 percent above board.

We spoke to the emir of Qatar; we had an exclusive interview with him when all of this was breaking in September. This is what he said to us and

already the Qataris have said this will not affect their preparations for the 2022. Let's look at what he told us a few months ago.

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SHEIKH HAMAD BIN KHALIFA AL THANI, EMIR OF QATAR: . people should understand that Qatar had the best bid and Qatar will

provide and will do one of the best World Cups in history. And I'm sure about that.

And I hope that this will happen.and people don't want to accept, don't want to realize that a small country, Arab Muslim country, can host a big

event like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So is it about sour grapes?

Or do you think there's going to be a rebidding process for the 2022?

TOOBIN: Well, that will be, I think, the big question for the new head of FIFA. My sense is that the Russia World Cup is too soon, given the fact

that you have to build stadiums. I mean, it is too soon, really, to -- too soon before the Russia World Cup to change it.

But the combination of the fact that 2022, which is when the World Cup is supposed to take place in FIFA, is really quite a few years off, combined

with the frank absurdity of holding the World Cup there, that I think every football fan in the world knows a tiny country, where it's so hot at the

time the World Cup is usually played, where they're thinking about moving it to the middle of the professional seasons.

There are so many problems with holding the -- and the fact that the bid process is -- was very questionable to say the least.

AMANPOUR: Very, very briefly, where do you see the next shoe dropping in this whole investigation, this whole FIFA process?

TOOBIN: More indictments, more people will be charged. I don't know if Sepp Blatter will be charged, but certainly other people will be charged.

And the way criminal investigations work is they flip people. They get people on the lower levels to talk about people higher up. And the target

is clearly Sepp Blatter at this point.

AMANPOUR: Jeffrey Toobin, thank you so much.

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AMANPOUR: Now the American legal system has been widely praised for leading the investigating charge into FIFA. But when we come back, we'll

turn to a fight within America's system of justice, turning up the heat against the death penalty. My interview with the trailblazing lawyer and

activist, Bryan Stevenson. His mission for just mercy -- that's next.

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AMANPOUR: Imagine the death penalty in America is in its dying days. The U.S. is regularly lambasted by the rest of the democratic and developed

world for being the lone death penalty holdout. But abolition advocates have new hope after Nebraska banned capital punishment last week. It's the

first conservative state to do so in more than 40 years.

In fact, executions are down in the United States since a peak in 1999.

So what is going on?

Joining me now in the studio is Bryan Stevenson. He's one of the top lawyers here in the United States working to free those who've been falsely

convicted and to end the death penalty.

Bryan Stevenson, welcome to the program.

BRYAN STEVENSON, U.S. LAWYER: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: So what actually is happening?

First of all, why did Nebraska go that route?

STEVENSON: You know, I think this is the seventh state in the last eight years to abolish the death penalty and I think there's a growing

consciousness that the death penalty isn't an issue that can be decided by asking, do people deserve to die for the crimes they've committed?

We've got to ask, do we deserve to kill?

And our death penalty system has just seen incredible unreliability, unfairness; we've been having these executions where people have been

tortured because the drugs weren't working properly. And I think the whole spectacle of the death penalty is coming into a new focus.

The United States spent $80 billion last year on excessive punishment and mass incarceration. And people from both political parties are now

questioning whether this investment in punishment, in prison, is sensible.

AMANPOUR: Because that actually is kind of a quiet undertone. I've only just become aware of how unbelievably expensive it is to prosecute and to

actually put a death penalty case to the -- because of the price of appeals, because of the cost of housing death penalty inmates.

STEVENSON: You know, the State of California has the largest death row in the country. They're spending about $200 million a year for the death

penalty. Over the next five years, they'll spend $1 billion on the death penalty and no one will be executed.

And I think a lot of people are saying, well, couldn't we use that money to actually improve public safety?

AMANPOUR: So there are, at last count, just over 3,000 inmates on death row awaiting execution.

In your studies and in your work with your project, how much of a percentage do you think is wrongly convicted?

STEVENSON: Oh, I think it's an enormously high percentage, not just the innocent, but if you look at people wrongly convicted, unfairly tried,

it's enormous.

I mean, in the '80s, about 75 percent of the cases that were reviewed by federal courts resulted in new trials. And that changed in the '90s

because we made the courts less capable of granting review. But we still see an incredible error rate.

We just had the 153rd exoneration of an innocent person, a wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. That means that for every nine people

we've executed, we've now identified one innocent person on death row. That rate alone would make the death penalty pretty shocking.

AMANPOUR: And one of your clients, actually, Anthony Ray Hinton, who was in Alabama, falsely convicted of a double murder back in 1985 and released

after 30 years on death row, let's just listen to what he said when he came out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY RAY HINTON, WRONGLY IMPRISONED: I want you to know there is a God. He sit high but he looks low. He will destroy but yet he will defend. And

He defend me. And I just want to thank Him. I'm not ashamed that you know that He sent me not just a lawyer, but the best lawyer, the best

lawyer. And I couldn't have made it without them.

And I want to say to the victim's family, I will continue to pray for you just as I have for 30 years. A miscarriage of justice not only to me but

to the victim's family. For all us that say that we believe in justice, this is the case to start showing it because I shouldn't have sit on death

row 30 years.

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AMANPOUR: I mean, amazingly emotional, there you were also in that picture alongside him. And he was about to be executed for a crime he didn't

commit.

STEVENSON: That's right. It was an extraordinary day. He was -- he spent 30 years on death row for this crime he didn't commit. He was locked down

in a 5' x 7' cell. He actually witnessed 30 -- 53 executions during his time on death row. He would sometimes tell me that, in the early days,

when they used the electric chair, he could smell flesh burning the next day. And yet he was a remarkably hopeful person.

And what frustrated me about that case was that we actually had the evidence to prove his innocence 16 years ago. There was ballistics

evidence that we could use to compare the gun that they said was used in these crimes. And it clearly showed he didn't do it.

But none of the people who were involved in that prosecution were willing to even retest the evidence. They felt more comfortable potentially

executing an innocent person than accepting responsibility that they had made a mistake.

AMANPOUR: Well, and you're talking about prosecutors, obviously, and the system. And we're going to play another sound bite, a very heartfelt one

from a prosecutor, who actually, his op-ed went viral from Louisiana. You know, he spoke and apologized for the wrong that he had done in putting

people on death row. Listen.

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MARTY STROUD, FORMER PROSECUTOR: How can you give any credit to a verdict that was obtained when the -- when Mr. Ford was represented by two

attorneys, who were very good attorneys, who had never tried a jury case, much less a criminal case?

And they're sitting there, trying their best to represent a man who is indigent and can't afford counsel?

I can't, looking back on it, that in and of itself should have put a signal to my dense brain that it was wrong.

Back when I was in my early 30s, I was caught up in that insanity, that the end justified the means and that we didn't try people who were innocent.

And if anybody claimed they were innocent, it was bogus.

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AMANPOUR: Well, Bryan, that is such an amazing mea culpa, and especially as we see these awful statistics, whereby 41.6 percent of death row inmates

here are black; 12.6 percent of the U.S. population is black. So there's a double injustice going on.

STEVENSON: And the even more troubling statistic is that about 80 percent of the people who are on death row are there for crimes involving victims

who are white, even though people of color are much more likely to be the victims of homicide.

And I think what made his statement so remarkable is that he accepted responsibility. He was -- he was remorseful.

And it's a shame that in this country that stands out because the job of a prosecutor is to do justice. They ought to be acknowledging when mistakes

are made, because we won't get to reform without that acknowledgement.

AMANPOUR: And yet potentially, it's the beginning of the dam breaking.

STEVENSON: Yes, it -- I hope so. I mean, we have a system that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. We need

reform. And we certainly need to stop killing people when we make the kind of mistakes that have characterized our system for so long.

AMANPOUR: Bryan Stevenson, keep up the fight. Thank you so much for joining us.

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AMANPOUR: Now the wheels of justice may turn slowly but they are turning. And after a break, we turn to imagining a world where equality and justice

are coming to a painter's view of America. The incredible work of Kehinde Wiley -- next.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, imagine a world where the classic art pieces of the past are completely reimagined with a modern and diverse

twist, like this.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): The famous 1800 portrait of Napoleon crossing the Alps becomes this, bright colors, camouflage pants and Timberland boots.

Or this portrait of a couple from the 1600s becomes this, two modern young men in T-shirts and casual pants.

It all springs from the vivid imagination of the popular American artist Kehinde Wiley, challenging the viewer to think deeply about the dynamics of

power and race and the world is taking note.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has awarded Wiley the Medal of Arts just this past January and his studios are all over the globe, including one

here in Brooklyn and his latest exhibit is touring museums across the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Kehinde Wiley, welcome to the program.

KEHINDE WILEY, ARTIST: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: So of all those pictures which are really amazing and fabulous, the one of Napoleon crossing the Alps just got me because when I was a

little girl I had a book on horses and guess what, that was in that book.

And here I see you making it into a modern masterpiece.

WILEY: That's right.

AMANPOUR: What's your point?

What's the objective of putting these modern faces in this old art?

WILEY: Well, art is about communicating power and it's been that way for hundreds of years. Artists have been very good at working for the church

and for the state, communicating the aspirations of a society.

What I choose to do is to take people who happen to look like me, black and brown people all over the world increasingly and to allow them to occupy

that field of power.

AMANPOUR: You famously say -- and it's written about how you started -- that one of the key turning points was finding a mug shot on the ground in

L.A. where you grew up. And that created this whole sort of genre that you have developed. Tell me about the mug shot and where it's led you.

WILEY: Right. It was a day in Harlem. I remember it like it was yesterday, walking down the street and here's this crumpled piece of paper

and on it is a very sympathetic image of this young man and it turns out to be a mug shot photo. And it got me thinking about mug shots certainly but

also mug shots as a type of portraiture.

What is portraiture? It's choice. It's the ability to position your body in the world for the world to celebrate you on your own terms. The mug

shot, of course, removes all of that power, all that control. And it got me also thinking about the role of an artist within a society.

What can I do to start a broader conversation about presence and imminence and the desire to be seen as respected?

AMANPOUR: And you have also said that you are putting brown and black faces into a world of art that's only ever really had white faces and also

people have said that actually your work should startle. It should startle anyone, regardless of race, creed or color.

WILEY: Well, the world's a scary place. The role of an artist is to look at that world as it is and to imagine alternate possibilities but also to

heighten what actually is.

What can I do as an artist that hasn't already been done before? Look closer.

My job is to walk through the streets, find someone who's minding their own business, trying to get to work, stopping them. The next thing you know,

they're hanging on a great museum throughout the world and it allows us to slow down and to say yes to these people, yes to these experiences, yes to

these stories.

AMANPOUR: And a lot of what you're showing also is these people but wearing very hip clothes, you are not ashamed and shy of the brand. In

fact, you celebrate the brand. And even in a society -- I mean, I remember years ago in New York, people were getting killed and in fights for

shearling jackets and for Trainers.

WILEY: That's right.

AMANPOUR: And yet you're celebrating that.

WILEY: Well, what I'm doing is I'm looking at fashion as culture, fashion as serious business, where people will oftentimes dress themselves as a

form of armor. Fashion is armor insomuch as it says something about who we are in the world. It also projects us a bit. My work tries to concentrate

on fashion as a conceptual color. It's yet another color in my palette, to tell a story.

AMANPOUR: Kehinde Wiley, thank you so much for joining me here in the studio.

WILEY: Thank you. It's been my pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And that is it for our program tonight. Remember you can always see our whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and

Twitter. Thank you for watching and goodbye from New York.

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