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Pistorius Emotional at the Stand; Ukraine Passes Tougher Separatism Penalties; Crews Race to Locate Faint Signals

Aired April 08, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, time is running out.

DAVID JOHNSTON, AUSTRALIAN DEFENSE MINISTER: Today is another critical day.

COSTELLO: Officials waiting for another signal from the pinger.

ANGUS HOUSTON, CHIEF COORDINATOR, JOINT AGENCY COORDINATION CENTRE: There have been no further contacts with any transmission.

COSTELLO: Plus, the blade runner and the night of the murder.

OSCAR PISTORIUS, FORMER OLYMPIAN: I'd taken my firearm and I placed it next to -- under the bed next to the pedestal.

COSTELLO: Oscar Pistorius is taking the stand again this morning.

PISTORIOUS: I heard the window open in the bathroom, the first thing that ran through my mind was that I needed to arm myself.

COSTELLO: And Ukraine. Becoming a tinderbox. New warnings of an all-out civil war.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

Russia and Ukraine trade accusations. Lawmakers in Kiev trade punches.

This brawl in Ukraine's parliament underscores the reality of a nation torn by rival loyalties and incensed by Cold War hatred. Fists began flying when one pro-Russian lawmaker took to the podium and nationalistic radicals took offense. The lawmaker says the country was pushed to this point when pro-Western activists toppled the president. You'll remember he was backed by Moscow.

We'll have more on the unfolding crisis in Ukraine in just a few moments.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

COSTELLO: But we begin with breaking news. It could be the most important day of testimony in the murder trial of Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius. Moments ago in his own words the disgraced track star described the final moments before he shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PISTORIOUS: Then I heard a noise from inside the toilet, but I perceived it to be somebody coming out of the toilet. Before I knew it, I'd fired four shots at the door. My ears were ringing. I couldn't hear anything. So I shot -- I kept on shouting for Reeva to phone the police. I was still scared to retreat because I wasn't sure if there was somebody on the ladder. I wasn't sure if there was somebody in the toilet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Let's bring in CNN's Robyn Curnow from Pretoria, South Africa, also Kelly Phelps, a CNN legal analyst.

Robyn, I know you were inside the courtroom for that dramatic moment. Take us through how Oscar Pistorius described that night, when he killed Reeva Steenkamp.

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you heard it. You know, and you don't even need the pictures. You don't even need the image of him to get a sense of what was said and how he came across. Just that faltering voice. Initially, he had been quite composed throughout the day, but the closer and closer he got to that crucial moment where he shot her, his voice became more and more wobbly and, of course, he seemed to -- I noticed throughout the day -- he seemed to hunch over and over and over as the day got on.

But crucially, I think also, he looked directly at the judge through all of this testimony. He was talking to her. She was often piercingly looking back at him. But, however, at that last moment when those details just became too much, you heard it. You didn't need to see it. It was uncontrollable, devastating sobbing.

COSTELLO: Just to shed a little light for our viewers about what he says happened that night, he says he was in bed. He heard a noise. He thought Reeva Steenkamp was also in bed. He whispered to her to, what? Get down? And that's when he got up without his prosthetic legs on, grabbed ahold of the gun and went to investigate it. Went to investigate.

Can you take it from there, Kelly?

KELLY PHELPS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's a little bit different to that version of events, actually. He got out of bed because he couldn't sleep. He spoke to Reeva Steenkamp as he got out of bed and it was only once he had gone out to the balcony, come back in, that he then heard a noise in the bathroom. And it's at that point that he whispered into the room to Reeva that there was an intruder, and they were in danger while he was getting his gun, went on the corridor to the bathroom, and essentially was checking out all directions that an intruder could be coming from. Having heard the bathroom door had been opened.

And while he was in that corridor, he screamed out further to Reeva Steenkamp because she hadn't answered to phone the police and get down and take cover, and then once he got into the bathroom itself, he stopped speaking, because, according to his version of events, he was worried that if he shouted out from inside the bathroom, whoever was inside the bathroom would know where to shoot at him from.

He then heard a noise in the toilet enclosure and shot in a frenzied panic through the toilet door. He still wasn't convinced whether he had got the so-called intruders that he believed were behind that door, and was still very fearful that they might be on a ladder outside the open bathroom door, and that he and Reeva were still in danger, and it was only sometime after that, he'd gone back into the bedroom, he'd gone to look for her. He sat on the bed. Realized she wasn't there.

He says he still thought that maybe she was hiding under the bed or behind the curtains in the bedroom before the sick realization dawned on him that there was a chance it was her in the toilet enclosure, and then he had put his prosthetic legs on, ran back into the bathroom, tried to kick the door, and when that was unsuccessful, retrieved the cricket bat and eventually bashed the door down to find --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Right. I'm going to interrupt you there because I'm going to let -- I'm going to let -- I'm going to interrupt you there because I'm going to let Oscar Pistorius take it from there. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PISTORIOUS: And the first time I hit it, I remember hitting, I hit the frame of the door, and the shock in my hands. It got a small piece open, and at that point all I wanted to do was just look inside to see if it was Reeva.

I then hit the door -- I think I hit the door three times, and there was a big plank, I grabbed it with my hands and I threw it out into the bathroom. I leaned over there, the middle partition. I tried to open the door from the inside, but there was no key in the door and I leaned over the middle partition of the door, and I saw the key was on the floor at that point. All I wanted to do was climb into the toilet over the middle part of the door.

I -- once I leaned over the partition to get in the door I saw the key. So I took it, unlocked the door, finally the door opened, I threw it open and I sat over Reeva and I cried. And I don't know -- I don't know how long. I don't know how long I was there for. She wasn't breathing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We'll take an adjournment. Court will adjourn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. At that point, the judge called for an adjournment. She ended the court session for today. Oscar Pistorius will continue his testimony tomorrow.

Robyn, I wanted to ask you, Steenkamp's family was in the courtroom. They were listening to this testimony. What was their reaction?

CURNOW: You know, as you can hear, it's gut wrenching for anyone to listen to it, whether you have a stake in it, whether you believe he did it or didn't do it, it's a very, very powerful piece of testimony. But Reeva Steenkamp's mother largely, I must say, pretty stony faced throughout it, through much of this entire court case.

There was a moment or two where she bowed her head down, holding her head in her hands. She was supported by her lawyer. Reeva's cousin and a few of her friends also in court sitting around Reeva Steenkamp's mother. They also largely unemotional. Nobody really breaking down in tears in reaction to any of the details.

The one person who was consistently crying or at least sobbing was Oscar Pistorius' sister. She spent much of the day sort of dabbing her eyes. Her lips sometimes wobbling. It looked like she was always, you know, just on the verge of bursting into tears.

So what you saw was a very emotional day for both sides, and I think just being in court also, it was quite difficult, and I've said it before. In this trial. Yesterday when he turned around and apologized to Mrs. Steenkamp, it felt so personal, so intimate. It felt like all of us in the gallery were intruding.

There were times, particularly also in some of these crime scene photos are flashed up, that really this should be a personal thing. Either between Oscar Pistorius and the family of the woman he killed.

COSTELLO: Right.

CURNOW: Or between the police and the legal experts. You know, I think at times it does, you know -- it does feel quite disconcerting having to -- having to be there.

COSTELLO: Kelly, the judge will decide the verdict in this case. There is no jury. So she's going to listen to the rest of Oscar Pistorius' testimony tomorrow. His emotions seem real to me. I mean, if they're not real, he's the best actor ever.

PHELPS: Absolutely. I think anyone who's been in the court, whatever side of the argument you stand on is that at this stage not in doubt of the sincerity of his emotional response. I expect the judge is equally not in doubt. Of that you could see today by the request of postponement, that she essentially unilaterally called, but that won't weigh in her decision-making process.

It might lend credibility to his testimony, but that will not be the thing that will decide her outcome, her verdict, on this case. She is very experienced at separating her emotions from her reason.

COSTELLO: Robyn Curnow, Kelly Phelps, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, rising tensions and flying fists in Ukraine, and it comes with warnings over -- well, a civil war. We'll be right back.

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COSTELLO: Russia is now warning the Ukraine that any use of force in its eastern region could lead to a civil war. And the fighting is not limited to soldiers. Pro-Russian protesters have seized government buildings throughout Ukraine and are calling for a referendum on succession. Ukraine's interim president is fighting back saying he'll treat any Russian who seizes a government building as a terrorist.

And it's that back and forth that led to this. Pro-Russian and pro- Ukrainian lawmakers fighting inside the Ukrainian parliament. This absolute brawl comes as Ukrainian lawmakers pass a bill toughening penalties for anyone calling for separatism.

Diana Magnay joins us live from Moscow with more.

Good morning.

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. That's right.

Well, now anyone charged with separatism, or being involved in activities that redraw national borders, for example, will get much tougher penalties than before.

So any kind of violence by people described as separatists will now have a penalty of between, up to five years for first offense. Up to 10 years for a second offense and then a more strict penalties across the board.

So, that is the legislation that was pushed through the parliament today. It still has to be signed into law by the acting president but it effectively means, as you said, those protesters who have taken official buildings in various southeastern cities in Ukraine are categorized as terrorists and will have severe penalties as a result.

COSTELLO: So these pro-Russian protesters that are operating in the eastern Ukraine, who are they?

MAGNAY: Well, it's different in Crimea, where you had a majority Russian ethnic population. In large parts of south and eastern Ukraine, you have many people for whom Russian is their first language who don't feel as though the authorities in Kiev respect or in any way reflect their legitimate interests, but it's very hard to say exactly who's behind all of this. The west, the United States, Kiev, has intimated that it is Russia who is orchestrating these kinds of uprisings that we're seeing.

The U.S. secretary of state and the Russian foreign minister had a telephone conversation yesterday where John Kerry said, you know, there have been arrests recently of Russian intelligence operatives operating in that part of the country, and reminded Sergey Lavrov that Kiev believes they are behind all of this. This is something that Lavrov himself has completely denied and just says that this is the U.S. ascribing to them what, in fact, the U.S. is doing itself. And interestingly, the foreign ministry here in Russia today, carol, said that there were Kiev forces -- forces from Kiev alongside various people from the right sector, with American mercenaries, they said, belonging to the contracting firm Graystone, who were operating and trying to stop protesters from having their voices heard.

Now, of course, this is an allegation that we've heard in Russian propaganda in the last couple of weeks, really. It's difficult to confirm ourselves, but that is certainly the claim Russia is making -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Diana Magnay, reporting live from Moscow this morning. Thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM: the best efforts of man and machine as search crews race after the most promising lead yet in the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

CNN's Will Ripley covering the search for us this morning. Will?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right now, the search for signals from the missing plane. We are live in Western Australia monitoring this massive operation underway as we speak.

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COSTELLO: Now, the latest on the mystery of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. This morning, the search narrows but more precious time is slipping away. Crews scrambling with new urgency but found no trace of the faint underwater signals heard over the weekend.

Today, the search area for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 has been drastically scaled back. That red box you see is today's focus, dwarfed by the sprawling gray areas earlier searched by sea and air. One expert says the search area has shrunk to the size of Texas to merely the size of the city of Houston. Still a big area, though, right?

But with the batteries on the flight recorders either dead or dying, search efforts are holding nothing back. CNN's Will Ripley is at the hub of the search. He's in Perth, Australia, this morning.

Good morning, Will. Tell us more.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol. Yes, you know, you're talking still about quite a large area, 30,000 square miles. If you think about one ship towing a very long line and basically doing kind of a ladder person. Kind of like you do when mowing your lawn, back and forth.

Each segment of that ladder takes about eight hours. That includes three hours for the ship and the tow line behind it to make a turn, and we've now gone more than two days before hearing a signal underwater. As you know, the Ocean Shield towing behind the U.S. Navy's pinger locator listened to a signal more than two hours over the weekend and tried again. Heard it about 15 minutes, but it's been silent ever since.

And so, the big push right now is to try to relocate that signal, because what needs to happen is, this pinger locator needs to hear the signal multiple times to be able to get a pretty approximate idea of where debris, where wreckage might be. And right now, we just don't have the answers. The area still too big for the other equipment that's in the area to work effectively.

COSTELLO: All right. Will Ripley, reporting live from Perth, Australia.

Let's talk more about this. Is all hope lost?

With me now, Mary Schiavo, CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general for the Department of Transportation. And Peter Goelz, a CNN aviation analyst and former NTSB managing director.

Welcome to both of you.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Thank you.

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Good to see you.

COSTELLO: Nice to see you both.

Peter, the batteries are likely dying or dead in those black boxes. How long will they continue pinging?

GOELZ: Well, there's no question that this is a setback for the search. The boxes are designed to have the batteries work 30 days. If they were well-maintained, it might last 35 days, but that the Ocean Shield has not reacquired the ping is a genuine setback. And we're talking now an investigation that could go on months, if not years.

COSTELLO: Oh. So, Mary, searchers have refined the search area. I would assume that still means they're fairly sure the plane went down in that area?

SCHIAVO: Right. The -- by refining it down to the search area, I think the pings that they did hear were tremendously helpful, because you remember they had that big, long arc they had gotten from the Inmarsat data. The pings helped localize it.

But the problems with the pings can extend a wide area. You know, like a radius of maybe five miles. So, you know, diameter would be ten miles. They still have a really big area based on the pings they did hear. If they were able to pick up more pings, they could have reduced that size and given submersibles just a small area to search.

I don't think all hope is not lost by any stretch of the imagination, but it just means the submersibles will have a really long, as they say, mowing the ocean's path to go underwater now and sort of block by block cover the city of Houston.

COSTELLO: So, Peter, does that mean they'll send the submarines down sooner than later?

GOELZ: Well, I think they're going to keep towing for the sounds, probably for another week or ten days. And then they're going to have to re-assess and decide how they're going to examine this area much closer, and they'll have to use side scanning sonar, and as Mary knows, as she just said, boy, that's going to be a block by block search.

So, I think -- I think we're in a very critical stage of the search, and some big decisions are going to have to be made in the next week or so.

COSTELLO: Thanks to you both, Mary Schiavo, Peter Goelz.

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM: equal pay for women and men takes center stage at the White House as President Obama prepares to take action on the issue.

Jim Acosta, live in Washington. Good morning, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

That's right. Later this morning, President Obama will be focusing on equal pay for women. What about the pay for women located at the office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? We'll talk about that in just a few moments.

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