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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Paris Attacks Suspect Arrested in Brussels. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 18, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:01] PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Completely called. Since then ...

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We'll have it. That's the other thing because we've seen his name brought back so many times in those last four months since those 130 people died in the attack in Paris that night, that coordinated series of attacks. We've heard about the other raids. We heard about the suspicion that Abdeslam may have been there. He may have been in the apartment. He may have been housed. He may have been hidden. But do we have the confirmation that he actually has made these points of contact all the way along?

CRUICKSHANK: What we now know is that, after the Paris attacks he was in that residence, that apartment which was raided on Tuesday afternoon in Brussels by the Belgians in the joint operation with the French.

BANFIELD: So that's it, just this week?

CRUICKSHANK: His DNA was recovered there. The fingerprints of his were recovered there. The other evidence were recovered, suggesting he had been pretty recently and they thought perhaps were he was one of the two that managed to get away by the route as one of the terrorists covered their retreat by firing at police through the door. They're not absolutely sure. They were not absolutely sure that he was one of the two that got away ...

BANFIELD: Right.

CRUICKSHANK: ... but they were thinking maybe he was.

BANFIELD: Just to be clear, this would have been the very first time they've had some confirmation of his existence.

CRUICKSHANK: Exactly right.

BANFIELD: ... in all of those raids, all the way up and so that's incredible.

CRUICKSHANK: Exactly right.

BANFIELD: Let me go to the ...

CRUICKSHANK: But the trail had gone completely cold until Tuesday. They were not expecting him to be in the apartment. They did not believe ... BANFIELD: Wow.

CRUICKSHANK: ... the apartment was connected, necessarily, to him. It was a big surprise when they went in and they got into a huge gun fight with the three terrorists inside.

BANFIELD: Well, we always heard that whenever there was a big gun fight in the search for Osama Bin Laden, it meant there was a prize being hidden in there. So who knows if he is one of the two that escaped or he's one of the two who were injured and taken into custody today.

Our Nima Elbagir is a senior international correspondent. She's on route to Brussels right now. Nima what can you tell us?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Ashleigh. Well, you are absolutely right. There the stakes that the fire fight means that they were hiding a bigger prize in police has expected and that's really what's informing the scrutiny that is currently being directed to this Molenbeek's raid. You have four separate raids as we understand it from eyewitnesses on the ground that's being undertaken by heavily armed members of the Belgian Special Forces.

And just to give you the context of what that means, that raid on the premise that eventually led to the finding of the DNA on Tuesday of this week, that was carried out by a regular police officers but now it seems that as the manhunt has ratcheted up, the Belgian authorities are very much trying to escalate the capabilities that they're bringing to this. What's really interesting, is that when we speaking to Belgian's Interior Minister, recently he said that he believed that they weren't the only ones hunting for Salah Abdeslam. But in fact, the ISIS themselves would be seeking him that in a way, this was Europe's most hunted man from all sides.

So if indeed he had been in the apartment with someone as senior as similar with that A.K.A. (inaudible), then that would show that there was a continuing contact between him and ISIS even though he had -- and he was characterized at the time that fled the battlefield and not detonated his backs.

We are on our way to the site Ashleigh and we will get any new information with you as soon as we get it.

BANFIELD: All right. Nima, I'll let you continue on your journey. I want to go to London now. Nic Robertson is joining us live, our senior diplomatic editor.

Nic, something that Nima just reported was fascinating to me that ISIS may have been tracking him, as well as authorities who were tracking him because of what the ISIS did in that terror attack. Which means this man, Abdeslam may have not found as much comfort and care in his underground journey since the attack as maybe we thought.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, I mean, with the fact that he didn't appear in the tribute video, if you will of the propaganda video that ISIS put out a few months after the Paris terror attack clearly indicates he's not in the roll of honor, the hall of fame. That suicide vest that was found in the pin had its DNA on it. Was he really going to use it?

The reports are that when he called his friends in Belgium to come and pick him up in the following the attacks that he was in tears and that indicates, you know, some emotional distress. Should he have joined his brother who blew himself up as part of the Paris attack? That's all unclear but we don't know the truth behind that. But if that's the case and the evidence seems to point in that direction then that it is hardly a hero to ISIS.

And therefore, whatever networks the ISIS had in Belgium, knowing that he'd not only not follow through on job, was heading back to Belgium. The man like him who within hours would be known to the police would be so toxic that if he went to any of their safe houses, he could disrupt not just that house but the networks of people ...

BANFIELD: Wow.

ROBERTSON: ... that potentially they'd had lying in and wait for other attacks. We don't know this for sure but I mean if you are ISIS that's what you are thinking. This man is toxic to you. Are you going to help him? He's going to compromise you.

So, if he had been lying low in that property until Tuesday where his fingerprints was found, what was his plan B going to be if he was one of the two man who ran out of there and ran away.

[12:35:07] His plan B was perhaps pretty limited because he wasn't going to get all the help he might, otherwise, have got had it been some kind of hero in those networks. In fact, you know overtime, the fact that he stayed there and associated it, the police raids in Belgium, the ISIS commanders in Iraq and Syria must be looking of what he's brought raiding down on their perhaps careful planning and preparation in Europe in all number of raids because the roads have led back to Belgium.

He held focus the police on Belgium. He has brought a lot more trouble on the organization. So, he's hardly going to be the guy they really want to help. Yet, are they going to throw him to the wolves? That seems to be unlikely because he probably knows more than they like to see him give away to the police.

So, it does certainly, you get the impression. We don't have the good information at the moment because the Belgium ...

BANFIELD: Right.

ROBERTSON: ... authorities are very careful in limiting because they don't want to give any clues to terrorists but it creates the impression that Salah Abdeslam's days on the run perhaps got a fair few shorter after that raid on Tuesday.

BANFIELD: It's just something out of a fine novel or, you know, the cinematic epic to think he been chased out and chased down and fleeing from not only the international special forces efforts that have been tracking him like bloodhounds but also ISIS who are no slouches themselves in this kind of an effort.

Nic, standby for a moment, I want to address that the pictures to the right of the screen which our viewers are watching. These are live pictures that are coming in to CNN now of the Molenbeek neighborhood in Belgium where those shots were fired, those previous raid pictures you were seeing were actually taken. This is Brussels, as we zoom in on the map. I don't know how familiar you are, but this is effectively exactly where this is happening.

This is the tape that we shot moments ago and had fed in to us of the actual operation. I cannot tell you the timing of this, whether the shots were fired prior to or after the pictures that you're seeing now. We do know that this apartment, up in the stairs where they stopped, where these Police Special Forces and Tactical Team stops. They cleared a few women out of there but we did not see any arrests or shootout involving the two men who are in custody.

We're back to the live pictures on the right-hand side of your screen. Again, you can see it's kind of odd to see all of those people crowded off to the right-hand side of that doorway. I don't know if they're onlookers or if they're actually the Special Forces themselves or other police entities.

But Paul Cruickshank, as we're watching these live pictures and I know at any moment we're going to have to jump off of those because we don't like to give away any kind of tactical operations. So, these ones have been cleared for us. The word toxic was used when Nic Robertson said Abdeslam was toxic.

A couple of reasons there, number one he chickened out and watched his brother die instead, he threw his vest, the suicide vest into a garbage can and it's a no honor role of ISIS. And number two, in the search for Abdeslam, it is very, very possible that he had given up unwillingly or not all the sorts of intelligence on their operation which makes him the persona nongratis in the top degree.

CRUICKSHANK: Ashleigh, there's certainly have been an hypothesis since the Paris attacks and Nic Robertson was leading to that hypothesis there and there was a hypothesis shared by some counter terrorism officials that he chickened out and because of that was the persona nongrata as far as ISIS is concerned.

I think what's finding out more about this raid on Tuesday and the fact that he was in this apartment with Mohamed Belkaid, a very senior member of the entire conspiracy, more senior than Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

He was in an apartment with him recently. I think that suggest that he was still in ISIS's good graces ...

BANFIELD: You think ...

CRUICKSHANK: ... and made for have been plotting another sort of thorough attack with those other two on behalf of ISIS. And the fact, perhaps that ISIS didn't put out his picture didn't create a sort of hero profile of him after the Paris attacks was to protect his future plans. BANFIELD: You're reading too much in it to.

CRUICKSHANK: I think that that's the sort of side of the argument I'm on at this point.

BANFIELD: Right.

CRUICKSHANK: But he was so very much out of the ISIS setup. Mohamed Belkaid was a senior ISIS figure hiding in Brussels --

BANFIELD: Sure.

CRUICKSHANK: ... and being in Syria part of the group.

BANFIELD: But he can't deny of that call that he enables have been a beloved friend who despite what ISIS may have wanted, which is, you know, Abdeslam's head on a spike. He may have wanted to protect his friends.

CRUICKSHANK: I think that sort of hypothesis ...

BANFIELD: Unlikely?

CRUICKSHANK: ... you know, it's losing. It stopped the price very, very quickly this week.

BANFIELD: All right. I want to keep on your sources, if you would.

Meantime, as we're watching these live pictures, we're still waiting for confirmation is to who it was who was shot and injured and taken into custody.

[12:40:04] Two people are being referred to as terrorists taken into custody after the shootout and after his raid today in the Molenbeek area in Brussels. What is it's in fact Abdeslam? The most wanted man in the Paris attacks. We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Our breaking news comes to us out of Belgium. If you're just joining us, the pictures like this crossing our screens as a police raid took place in the Molenbeek neighborhood in that city. They were after suspected terrorists. They caught two, injured two, and it is believed at this time being confirmed by our CNN affiliate RTBF, which is the Belgian State Media that Salah Abdeslam has been captured and is injured, but is alive.

[12:45:13] Salah Abdeslam, the picture on the left hand side of the screen. One of the most wanted terrorists in the last four months. He was the driver of the car that dropped off the suicide bombers at the stadium in the Paris attack, an attack, a coordinated attack that killed in a total of 130 people. This man has been on the run since, and the confirmation coming from CNN affiliate RTBF that in fact, he has been captured alive.

I want to go right now live on the phone is Dirk Coosemans who is a newspaper reporter who's live right now in the neighborhood.

Can you tell me what you are seeing in front of you right now? Dirk what do you see?

DIRK COOSEMANS, REPORTER: Yeah, just an ambulance have arrived because there are two people who are in the apartment who were wounded. One is shot in the knee and apparently it is Salah Abdeslam.

BANFIELD: Sorry, have I lost Dirk? I think we've just lost our connection.

COOSEMANS: Hello.

BANFIELD: Can you hear me Dirk, we just lost you. So just -- if you can reiterate, tell me again what it is you're seeing?

COOSEMANS: Well, an ambulance has just arrived and because there are two people who are in the apartment, who were shot by the police and one apparently is Salah Abdeslam.

BANFIELD: Yes, we are getting that confirmation, as well. Is the police operation still happening or have they finished?

COOSEMANS: No, it's still going on. They're inside the house, inside the building. And ten minutes ago shots were fired.

BANFIELD: Ten minutes ago shots were fired. Have there been any other shots, and are they clearing people out? Are they telling residents to move away and to clear that neighborhood?

COOSEMANS: Yeah, the neighborhood was cleared before the police had begun the action.

BANFIELD: Were there any other people in the apartment where these two people, one of them now confirmed to be Salah Abdeslam, were there any other people as well who were arrested or taken out?

COOSEMANS: Some sources say there were three people, other say there were two. It's not completely clear yet.

BANFIELD: Not clear yet. In terms of the police who were there, do you know if they are international, if they are local police? Do you -- can you determine who these forces are who have come in to capture these two?

COOSEMANS: It's the -- about the special units of the Belgian police, special units who do that kind of jobs.

BANFIELD: Were these the same people who did the raid on Tuesday, in which one man was killed and two escaped?

COOSEMANS: Yeah, the same unit, yes.

BANFIELD: Is there any concern that there maybe additional weapons or bombs in that area as they try to assess the situation? COOSEMANS: We don't know yet. The police isn't -- haven't been clearing the building yet. First they are taking out the wounded guys. An ambulance has arrived. And they are now taking out the two guys who are wounded. And yeah, one of them who has been hit in the knee is Salah Abdeslam.

BANFIELD: Did you witness that, Dirk? The man who was shot in the knee, did you witness that?

COOSEMANS: No, it was inside the house. So we were on the street. So we couldn't see that. But it was told to me by some a good source.

BANFIELD: All right, standby if you would Dirk Coosemans, he's been on the scene in the Molenbeek neighborhood.

Our Paul Cruickshank, CNN Terrorism Analyst, has been working your sources as well. And you've got confirmation as well.

CRUICKSHANK: Yeah, well CNN now has confirmation that Salah Abdeslam, the so-called tenth terrorist attacker has been taken in to custody by Belgian police.

He was injured as part of that operation. But he is alive. His life is not in danger, it would appear. And that is a huge moment, not only neutralizing the potential threat from him. But also he could be a real font of intelligence moving forward to try and wrap up the wider network they fear is still out there that was responsible for the Paris attacks and maybe plotting a new wave of attacks in Belgium, France and other European countries.

It's a very, very big moment. The trial for him had gone completely cold after those Paris attacks. They managed to smuggle him back to Brussels. But he went to Brussels and has been hiding for the last several months.

[12:50:05] They then went in this apartment on Tuesday afternoon. They weren't expecting him or any other terrorists to be there. But it appears that he was there as Tsarnaev was found, his fingerprints were found. He had recently being there. And he managed to escape.

BANFIELD: ... there's a lot of resistance which told them right a way that is a high value target.

CRUICKSHANK: A high value target indeed. And in fact that the guy that they killed inside that safe house was one of the senior members of the whole conspiracy who was giving orders to the Paris attackers during the time of the attacks, coordinating the Paris attacks, giving orders to Abdelhamid Abaaoud who was the field ring leader in Paris with the team that was sent to Paris.

This whole attack was planned from Belgium. They had multiple safe houses. They built the bombs there. They had several addresses right across the country, some in Brussels where they planned this thing for weeks and weeks and weeks, only moving to Paris just before the attacks. Well, they have now got one of the -- that the ten attackers that night, Salah Abdeslam has played a key role during the night of the attack, even though he didn't kill himself that night, he was meant to be a suicide bomber. He dropped off those stadium attackers earlier in the night for some reason.

BANFIELD: His own brother.