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Investigation into Lubitz's State of Mind; New Airstrikes Target Yemen Rebels; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired March 30, 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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[13:59:36] CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Tonight: on every traveler's mind, are we flying in safe hands? Britain's most senior psychologist

joins me live after German officials say that Lubitz was suicidal at one time. The big debate: patient privacy versus passengers' need to know.

And later in the program, putting pen to paper: letters from a prisoner of conscience. A Ukrainian pilot detained by Russia for nine months and on

hunger strike tells how far she's willing to go.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

Tonight we are delving into the deep, dark world of forensic psychiatry as investigators and travelers around the world try to connect the dots after

what happened aboard that Germanwings flight last week, not just the gruesome job of piecing together what physically remains -- apparently

about half the 149 victims have had their DNA matched and identified -- but aviation and psychological experts must also formulate an even more complex

picture about the main theory that copilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed the plane.

Today Germany state prosecutor delivered the alarming news that Lubitz had been suicidal at least before he had his pilot's license in 2013.

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CHRISTOPH KUMPA, GERMAN PROSECUTOR'S SPOKESMAN: He had at that time been in treatment of a psychotherapist because of what is documented as being

suicidical (sic) at that time.

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AMANPOUR: Despite that and despite the working theory that France's chief investigator says until we know for sure, we should not rule out other

hypotheses, like mechanical issues.

The media has had a field day; all weekend hysterical headlines like the ones behind me painted Lubitz's apparent state of mind and now the media

stands accused of demonizing depression when it's a common condition that affects one in five people at some point in their lives.

So let's drill down into what we know, what we don't and crucially what we should know.

With me now is Britain's most senior psychologist, Professor Simon Wessely. He's president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

So at what point, Professor, does someone's right to privacy become another death sentence?

SIMON WESSELY, PRESIDENT, ROYAL COLLEGE OF PSYCHIATRISTS: Clearly, everyone knows that there's a major duty of medical confidentiality and

that's what you want when you went to see any doctor, especially a psychiatrist.

But equally in our system and in most systems around the world, there comes a point at which that is not absolute. And that will happen when there is

a serious risk to some other people or person.

AMANPOUR: Like this one.

WESSELY: Well, possibly. I mean, I've had in my career once where I had to break confidentiality where there was a risk to another person. But

particularly you're dealing -- and let's take a simpler example. If you are dealing with someone with epilepsy in this country and you happen to

find out they're having fits and they're still driving, and they refuse to stop, you have a duty to tell the authorities.

AMANPOUR: Well, you know, this is actually rather revelatory to me because all day and all week people have been having this argument.

Is a patient's right to privacy sacrosanct?

For instance, in Germany, the law states that a doctor cannot reveal.

WESSELY: Yes. Germany's a little different; actually for historical reasons, it's even more sensitive about data around a mental illness. And

if you know your history you will know why.

In this country, we're not quite like that. So there are examples -- for example, to prevent an act of terrorism, there is a duty on doctors to

break confidentiality.

And the first thing you would do is try and persuade someone not to do whatever it is they're doing, for example, if they're thinking of flying.

And it -- I would have thought maybe 900,000 times out of 100,000 (sic) that will be sufficient because pilot are sensible people and they will

agree for their personal health.

AMANPOUR: Well, you have actually treated some pilots when you were doing clinical work plus you've treated military personnel. I mean, stress

levels are really high. Presumably they're not immune from this one-in- five statistic.

WESSELY: No, they're not at all, no. And when someone is depressed, it's absolutely -- in this country and, I imagine, everywhere -- that you cannot

fly an aircraft. And that's clear.

And if should you think that someone is or more likely if someone in the crew things that the pilot is suffering from some form of mental disorder,

that would be dealt with immediately. That's absolutely clear.

The discussion really is about what happens if you had a history of mental disorder, should you then be banned forever from certain professions?

And that's very much been what the debate is. If you are acutely depressed or suffering from really any physical illness that impairs your ability to

fly, you shouldn't fly.

And I think one of the things we should point out, we don't let pilots fly with depression, not because we're worried that they're going to murder

everybody on board. That's such an extraordinary possibility that that's not depression, but because they're impaired in concentration, memory and

attention, which isn't good for pilots.

[14:05:11] AMANPOUR: So can we -- there's a lot of aspects to this. Number one, we should not allow a pilot with depression to fly a plane.

You say that's clear.

WESSELY: Yes.

AMANPOUR: OK. So we've cleared that up.

What about -- now let's get to this history of depression because apparently the state prosecutor says this particular individual at some

time -- this is before 2013 -- was suicidal.

Apparently and according to these prosecutors, they did find a torn-up sick note in his dustbin. And yet the Germanwings Lufthansa officials on the

day of the crash said he was 100 percent fit to fly.

So there's a breakdown there.

WESSELY: Yes. I mean, it is too early to know exactly what happened and who knew what when. I imagine eventually it will all come out.

I know what would normally happen and I certainly know in this country a pilot who's previously had some form of mental disorder -- or physical

disorder, it's much the same -- would remain under supervision.

And they would be seeing their qualified psychiatrist in this case and there's no chance of them resuming flying until they're better, until

they're stable and until they've passed all their tests -- which, by the way, I've actually sat through a flight simulator. You have to be very,

very robust not to check up if -- you know, without any history at all. It's terrifying.

So they have really robust simulation of what they have to face. And that they all have to pass. And if they don't -- and I'm sorry, then many

pilots have had to retire for these reasons.

AMANPOUR: But so is this -- are pilots expected to be truthful and that is where the bar is?

Or is the employer meant to know, despite privacy, that there has been a history, that they have had episodes, that they have been suicidal?

WESSELY: The employer will know because when you join, you have to give a rights to have an occasional health screen, which includes giving

disclosure of your medical records --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: So do you think these --

WESSELY: -- that's standard.

AMANPOUR: -- Germanwings Lufthansa people knew --

WESSELY: I don't know.

AMANPOUR: -- his history?

WESSELY: I can't speculate on that because I simply don't know.

In most jurisdictions, you have a full occasional health assessment and you have to disclose your medical records.

AMANPOUR: And do you believe that's where the parameters should be now?

That if somebody is in the situation as described, as Lubitz, the employer must know this?

WESSELY: Well, I imagine, Christiane, when you joined CNN, you probably went through a occasional health assessment.

AMANPOUR: I don't recall --

(CROSSTALK)

WESSELY: -- bet you did. But most jobs now, that's fairly standard. And then, remember, pilots are the most scrutinized group of professionals in

the world, much more than soldiers that I deal with.

So every six months in this country, they will have a health check, which includes some form of psychological assessment and -- but finally, yes, you

expect someone to tell the truth. And if someone absolutely doesn't, it become much more difficult.

AMANPOUR: Do you think the media has demonized depression?

WESSELY: Well, they have. I mean, first of all, obviously psychiatrists all around the world are talking about this case and I think there's a --

everyone is unanimous that the media say, well, I don't know what this is and what's made this man do this. But it ain't depression. It's many

other things.

AMANPOUR: What is it, do you think?

WESSELY: Well, I don't know --

AMANPOUR: And not this man; let's take a hypothetical.

WESSELY: This is so rare, right, that as far as I know, there's never been a case of a pilot deliberately crashing a plane and leaving a suicide note

or an account unless we're talking about terrorism -- and of course that's exactly what they do.

So we're in really difficult area. There's been a handful of cases -- I think about one every 5-10 years, so that's very small -- crashes are rare.

And of crashes, the estimate is between maybe one in 200 or one in 300 are deliberately caused by the pilot.

So we are in uncharted territory here. It is so rare, it's really difficult. And we have to actually come to the possibility we may never

know for sure what happened.

AMANPOUR: We were in uncharted territory on 9/11 and after that, they closed and double logged and computer locked the doors. Now we understand

that that may have been a dangerous overreaction. And maybe that will change.

A pilot, a former pilot, writing in "The New York Times" this weekend, says, "The industry tests its pilots regularly to see how they would handle

an emergency. But it barely evaluates the risks that they might cause one themselves."

WESSELY: Yes, because I think these events are so rare that if you think that screening your pilots will detect someone like this, and let's say

that he has been hiding it, he's been extremely good at it, OK, his copilots have not noticed, no one else has noticed, if that has happened,

if you think that you can have a safety system that will detect that but not prevent -- as you say, maybe one in five pilots, like one in five of

the people watching this program have suffered from depression, now you could exclude all of those.

[14:10:10] But I don't think that's a reasonable thing to do.

And even that still might not have prevented other cases.

AMANPOUR: But briefly, as we close, you think possibly this is going to open a discussion on new parameters?

WESSELY: I think the parameters will be obviously from the flying safety bit -- that's for the people that know about this, about should you all

have someone in the cockpit -- from our perspective, it might take a look at some relaxing in the laws of confidentiality in different countries.

But in this country and many others, it's very clear what the duty of a doctor is if he believes or she believes that people are genuinely at risk;

they have a duty to act.

AMANPOUR: Professor Simon Wessely, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

So the difficult job of getting that pendulum finally balanced between privacy and safety.

And when we come back, the Middle East on a precipice still; Saudi Arabia looming over Yemen and the Iran nuclear talks go down to the wire.

What is next for the region?

We try to find out -- after this.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

A framework for regulating Iran's nuclear program is meant to be agreed by tomorrow.

Will the major world powers meet that deadline?

And what, if any, difference could a deal make to the broader Middle East meltdown?

Another round of Saudi-led airstrikes hit Yemen today, again trying to halt the Houthi takeover there. The rebels are a Shia sect, presumed to be

backed by Iran, which is Saudi Arabia's big rival. And many say this is another piece in the widening Shia-Sunni regional war.

At the very latest, losing Yemen would be a big blow to Saudi Arabia and also to the United States, which has spent many years and many billions of

dollars making Yemen the centerpiece of its counterterrorism strategy.

With me in the studio now is Sir William Patey. He's the former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia and also to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Welcome to the program.

When you see what's happening now, is it dangerous? Are you worried about Yemen, not just Yemen but as part of this sort of puzzle of collapse?

SIR WILLIAM PATEY, FORMER BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO SAUDI ARABIA: Well, Yemen's been in difficulties for many years. I think it's nearly always on

the brink. So it's not a new phenomenon. But it's part of a wider instability in the region. It obviously adds to the general disquiet about

what's going on in the region and particularly in Saudi Arabia. They're very worried about Yemen.

AMANPOUR: What do you think Saudi Arabia is more worried about, the broader fight for hegemony, if you like, against Shia Iran? Or just Yemen,

which is up against its border with Al Qaeda and the rest?

PATEY: Well, Yemen's been a traditional concern for Saudi Arabia. It's its own back yard; 25 million people on its southern border, some of the

tribes in Southern Saudi Arabia overlap with those in Northern Yemen.

[14:15:08] So it's not a new phenomenon. They've certainly invested a lot of money in trying to have a government in Yemen that is sympathetic to the

Saudis. So that has been the basic premise.

I think the Houthis are a new dimension. The Saudis have never been very sympathetic to the Houthis. They come from the Zaidiyyah, the Shia sect

and they would be very uneasy about a Houthi-led Yemen.

But they've also been worried about the Al Qaeda presence in Yemen. So it's a constant litany of worries.

AMANPOUR: You know, as you say, it's been a concern for Saudi Arabia for a long time. Well, Saudi Arabia is now bombing, trying to get rid of the

Houthis and support the ousted president, Hadi.

But only a few years ago, it was bombing in support of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former president, who is now with the Houthis.

So what is it that Saudi Arabia and the region is getting wrong?

PATEY: Well, the shifting sands of Yemen, it's very difficult to control Yemen and they did support Abdullah Saleh, as you say. They've bombed the

Houthis, at some point, now that Abdullah Saleh allied himself with the Houthis.

But equally, Saudi Arabia would have opposed the Isla (ph) Party, which they would have regarded as the Muslim Brotherhood. But they're now allied

with President Hadi.

So there are a lot of shifting sands. I think Saudi Arabia would have been keen to invest in all different parties in Yemen, almost in the way that

Iran invested in everybody in Iraq. The Saudis would have invested in everybody in Yemen.

AMANPOUR: So you've been ambassador to Iraq, to Afghanistan. And as we said, to Saudi Arabia. You've been studying this for a long time,

particularly in the 2000s, in the post-9/11 world and the post-Arab Spring world.

How does one put these pieces back together again?

You know, you've got all these implosions of Libya and Syria and Iraq and now Yemen.

Egypt is taking a whole different -- the matters into its own hands differently.

PATEY: I don't think we can put it back together again. It's going to be for the Arab peoples of those various countries to decide their own

destiny.

I mean, one of the interesting things about Saudi Arabia participating in airstrikes in Iraq and airstrikes in Yemen is they are taking a much more

prominent position. Arab governments themselves are beginning to do more.

As a factor of the vacuum, I think the U.S. is less active; Western powers have realized the limits of their ability to influence events. And so a

part of it is we are actually not the key players in all this anymore.

AMANPOUR: Which is, I don't know, to some of us, sounds pretty worrying because the vacuum has been exported by ISIS. They seem to be the dominant

factor right now.

What do you think it means that the United States, as I said, has spent so much time and money creating Yemen as the centerpiece of its

counterterrorism?

I mean, John Brennan has been there umpteen times. This was their success story.

PATEY: Well, they went to Yemen because Al Qaeda moved to Yemen. When they --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Yes. They're still there.

PATEY: -- pushed them out of Iraq, Al Qaeda's still there in Yemen.

So the front line, if you like, on the counterterrorism strategy, was focused on Yemen. So this will be worrying because in a situation where

there's no government, there's no stability, there's nobody to work with, Al Qaeda is free to act. And as you say, there is the prospect of daish

taking advantage of the instability to extend its presence.

So it is worrying. I think what we can do is support the forces of stability, support the anti-daish, anti-Al Qaeda trends.

I think what the Saudis have done is redress the balance of it to try and prevent a Houthi overall victory.

I think in the end what they're trying to do is to get talks going. And I think Abdullah Saleh's son, I think, was in Saudi Arabia recently, so there

could be some talks going on to broker an agreement.

AMANPOUR: Although I thought I heard that he had been fired, maybe.

PATEY: The son?

AMANPOUR: Yes, the son.

But just quickly, briefly, we have to go: Iran, the talks; Iran, the Shia- Sunni struggle, how much is that going to be playing into it?

PATEY: Well, they've been very careful to keep the nuclear talks out of the regional issues. I know the Saudis are worried that if there is a deal

on the nuclear deal that this will somehow lead to the U.S. being more sympathetic to Iranian interests.

I don't think so. I think the prospect might be of Iran being allowed into discussions and taking a more positive view. But I don't think there's

going to be a strategic realignment as a result of the nuclear talks.

AMANPOUR: Sir William Patey, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

Thank you.

And when we come back, the unlikely martyr to the war between Russia and Ukraine.

But first to Bangladesh, and the grief of a family whose son has been murdered. His crime? Blogging. He'd been writing about radicalization

there. And he was hacked to death on a busy street in the capital, Dhaka, today.

[14:20:04] This is the second such killing in the past two months.

After a break, we turn to another person challenging power and paying the price. The Ukrainian pilot and Russian prisoner Nadiya Savchenko, on

hunger strike for nearly 100 days. Ukraine honors her now with a postage stamp of approval. Next, correspondence from a jail cell, imagining Nadiya

Savchenko, in her own words, when we come back.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, though the Minsk agreement theoretically holds both sides in the conflict in Ukraine in check, the Russian army

continues to flex its muscles in exercises along the European border.

The U.S. Army is undertaking its own show of strength, Operation Dragoon Ride, a convoy of American hardware traveling more than 1,000 miles through

Eastern Europe. As they go eyeball to eyeball, it is the plight of just one person in this war that we turn to now.

Imagine a world where, from a Russian prison cell, this one woman, Nadiya Savchenko, remains a symbol of resistance at home in Ukraine. The 33-year-

old military pilot has been imprisoned in Russia for nine months without trial, three of those months on hunger strike.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): Kiev says she was kidnapped by Russia and is a prisoner of war. Moscow says she's wanted in connection with the deaths of

two journalists.

Now on day 97 of her hunger strike, we decided to speak to Nadiya through her lawyer, Mark Feygin, and here are her answers to some of our written

questions.

We started by asking how she's feeling.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On the edge, close to Nirvana and enlightenment -- joking. Holding on. But holding my body entirely on my power of my will

because I'm so numb that I couldn't feel the needle when the blood sample was taken from my vein today. Torturing, head is spinning.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): From the beginning, Nadiya has waged a daily battle with prison officials and medical teams, who are trying to make her eat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Doctors insist every day but I refuse. We haggle before going to the court and during the previous 10 days of my repeated

hunger strike, I have drunk 1,000 milliliters of rice broth, 500 milliliters of buckwheat broth and 1,000 milliliters of milk, had half a

kilo of sugar.

[14:25:11] And in the court, while waiting for their decision, a doctor gave me another handful of sugar and a bar of chocolate.

And I don't eat anything else and refuse drips, too.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): She says she's treated well, but she finds the 24- hour camera surveillance in her cell, quote, "very annoying." And, she says, she's not trying to kill herself. She just wants a fair hearing in

court.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To die? That's not our message. I'll think of something better. I'll be on hunger strike, as I said, until I'm returned

back to Ukraine or at least until detention is changed to a house arrest at the Ukrainian consulate, which is actually a part of Ukraine in Russia.

There is no point starting eating in prison. The vodka doesn't go down the throat here in this cage and the truth must win, after all. The court

should have released me a long time ago. I don't know what it will take to get me out of Russia, but I lose neither hope nor faith.

So many people around the world wish me to be free that it's impossible for a miracle not to happen.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): And she has this message for the Russian president.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If Putin wants to defeat Ukraine, let's try to defeat me first. Either task is too big for him to bite. But if he wants peace

and friendship between our nations as he claims, I'm ready to make the first step towards it.

My freedom will be that first step towards peace and understanding in Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So Nadiya Savchenko, defiant but also conciliatory from jail and categorically rejecting Russia's charge that she was responsible for the

mortar fire that killed two Russian journalists at a checkpoint in Eastern Ukraine. She says she was kidnapped an hour before they were killed.

And we contacted the Russian authorities for response to her case. They referred us to an earlier statement, where they call on the media to,

quote, "let the court of justice determine Savchenko's degree of guilt and punishment for the crimes she's charged with."

And of course, that's the point. She's waiting for her fair hearing in court.

Meantime, the president is demanding her return and European officials are also demanding that she be released. And as you can see, a postage stamp

in her honor in Ukraine.

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

Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

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