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Five Americans Freed From Iran En Route To US; Trudeau: "Credible Allegations" Link India To Sikh Murder; Ukraine Hails Gains, But Warns Situation Still Difficult; World Leaders To Kick Off Annual Meeting In Hours Ahead; Residents Of Flood-Ravaged City Protest Against Officials; Derna Residents Search For Family And Friends Amid Ruins; Russia Changing African Misson of Wagner Group; U.K. Police Probe 2003 Report after Russell Brand Allegations. Aired 12-12:45a ET

Aired September 19, 2023 - 00:00   ET

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

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LAILA HARRAK, CNN NEWSROOM ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Laila Harrak. Next on CNN NEWSROOM, headed home. The multi billion dollar deal that led to the release of five Americans, wrongly detained in Iran. A murder investigation turned international incident, after Canada accuses India's government of killing a prominent Sikh leader. And life after Prigozhin, CNN travels to one of Wagner's African bases to show how the mercenary group remains powerful after the death of its leader.

ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Laila Harrak.

HARRAK: We are just hours away from what's sure to be an emotional reunion on US soil. Five Americans freed from detention in Iran are scheduled to land in the Washington D.C. area in the overnight hours. They were released by Tehran on Monday as part of a deal mediated by Qatar.

It also includes the release of five Iranians detained in the US, and the unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian funds. The Americans made a brief stopover in Doha before leaving for the United States. While only three have been identified publicly, including Siamak Namazi, who has been held in Iran since 2015.

Morad Tahbaz and Emad Shargi were both arrested on espionage charges in 2018. While the two other freed Americans have not been identified publicly, a US official says President Joe Biden spoke with all of their families.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, US SECRETARY OF STATE: It's very good to be able to say that our fellow citizens are free after entering something that I think it would be difficult for any of us to imagine. That their families will soon have them back among them. And that, in this moment, at least, I have something very joyful to report. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRAK: And more now from CNN's Becky Anderson in Doha, Qatar.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR, CONNECT THE WORLD (voice-over): Smiles, hugs and tears, as five Americans detained inside Iran for years, are finally freed and on their way home. Among them, Siamak Namazi. He was arrested in 2015 while on a business trip to Iran and charged with having relations with a hostile state.

After nearly eight years in prison, Namazi was Iran's longest held American prisoner. Feeling abandoned by the US earlier this year, he appealed directly to President Biden in an unprecedented interview with CNN from inside the notorious Evin Prison.

SIAMAK NAMAZI, WRONGFULLY DETAINED: Honestly, the other hostages and I desperately need President Biden to finally hear us out, to finally hear our cry for help and bring us home.

ANDERSON (voice-over): Also freed, dual Iranian American citizens Morad Tahbaz and Emad Shargi. Tahbaz, an environmentalist, was arrested while on a trip to Iran in 2018. Shargi, a businessman who moved with his wife to Iran from the US in 2017, was also detained in 2018 on similar charges to that of Namazi.

ANDERSON: For years, their fate tied to tensions between the two countries. But with the help of a common friend in Qatar, breakthrough diplomacy brought us to this very moment.

ANDERSON (voice-over): Iran freed the dual citizens in a deal to release five Iranians held in US prisons, and to unblock $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds from South Korea. That cash moving from Seoul to Switzerland, before being transferred to Doha after the Biden administration last week issued a sanctions waiver clearing the way for the money to move.

The role of Qatar now changing from mediator to guarantor. Ensuring Washington's demands that Iran's billions are strictly controlled, and spent only on humanitarian goods like food and medicine. But critics worry even with Doha's oversight, the monies could be spent however Tehran decides. There is also concern this latest deal enables what many critics have dubbed Tehran's hostage diplomacy.

[00:05:04]

But for the freed Americans today at least, politics will likely be a secondary concern as they finally get to go home after years of mental and physical anguish. Becky Anderson, CNN, Doha.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRAK: For more, we are joined by Trita Parsi, he is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, as well as the author of Losing An Enemy. So good to have you with us Trita, can you put this moment into context for us from a diplomatic perspective. How significant is it that they managed to reach a deal and that the US was able to secure the release of these wrongfully detained Americans?

TRITA PARSI, QUINCY INSTITUTE FOR RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT: Obviously this is huge, particularly for some of these prisoners. I mean one of them has been in jail for almost eight years. There's been several prisoner swaps, he has constantly been left over and now he is finally free.

So you can just imagine how elated he and his family must feel to know that this nightmare finally is over. In the context of US-Iran relations, this is obviously important in terms of removing a very problematic obstacle. But I don't foresee it leading to any strategic shift in the relations, or even a deepening diplomatic process. I don't see the political appetite for that in Washington or in Tehran for that matter. At least not until after the US elections.

HARRAK: Now, as you know, there is now criticism that the Biden administration should not have done this because this deal allows for some frozen Iranian funds to be released, and that it's tantamount to sanctions really. What do you make of that argument?

PARSI: I don't find that argument convincing at all. At the end of the day, if these frozen funds were supposed to be used as leverage against Iran, what better way of using it then to release wrongfully detained Americans who should not have been in jail in Iran in the first place? And when it comes to the argument that the Iranian government can use the money anyway they want, that is simply not true.

This money is going from the South Korean bank, to a Qatari bank. If the Iranians want to buy food, agricultural products, medicine, that list has to be approved by the US, and then the Qataris will make the purchase using that money. The Iranians essentially will not even be able to touch that money. There has never been a deal that has been as restrictive as this.

HARRAK: Now as part of the deal, Iranian nationals have been released, how much do we know about them? And why were they detained in the United States in the first place?

PARSI: We know quite little about them because their cases have not been given much attention. In fact, very few people even knew who these people were up until a couple of days ago. Most of the cases are violations of sanctions, one way or another. And it's not entirely clear as to whether they wanted to be part of the swap.

We have examples in the past in which Iranian prisoners in the US were asked to be part of the swap and declined, they did not want to be part of a swap. So we don't know the full details of what the backgrounds and the circumstances of the five Iranians that have been released.

HARRAK: How would you, in conclusion, describe the Biden administration's policy now when it comes to Iran? PARSI: I think their policy, when it comes to Iran, it remains the same as it was from the very beginning. Which is that they want to see if they can resolve the nuclear issue, for instance, but they want to do it at a minimum political cost. And that is, I think, part of the reason why this has taken such a long time. There's constantly been an effort to try to reduce the political risk, and the political cost, rather than actually having a more bold policy.

Now thankfully it's finally come to a conclusion on this end. So the nightmare of these prisoners is over. But for a long time the fate of the prisoners was tied to the fate of the nuclear deal and that was completely erroneous because these prisoners, these wrongfully detained Americans, should not have been remaining in prison just because the nuclear issue could not be resolved.

HARRAK: Alright. Trita Parsi, thank you so much for this conversation.

PARSI: Thank you so much for having me.

HARRAK: And now to Canada where the prime minister says India could be behind an assassination carried out on Canadian soil. Justin Trudeau says there are credible allegations linking the Indian government to the deadly shooting of a prominent Sikh leader in British Columbia. To Canada, he was a citizen, to India, he was a wanted terrorist. CNN's Vedika Sud is covering this live from New Delhi. Vedika, extraordinary developments, what more can you tell us?

VEDIKA SUD, CNN REPORTER: Laila not only extraordinary, but also along with that a very serious and rare allegation leveled by the Canadian prime minister against the Indian government.

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You don't really see such accusations flying in parliament from a prime minister, and a serious message there from the Canadian prime minister to the Indian government, and particularly to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. What he has said, actually tantamount to the possibility of an Indian link to the slaying and murder, or rather assassination, of a leader, a Sikh leader, in Canada. Here is what Trudeau then went on to say in parliament.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen, on Canadian soil, is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty. It is contrary to the fundamental roles by which free, open, and democratic societies conduct themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SUD: Now Trudeau says he personally and directly raised this issue with the Indian prime minister at the G20 summit in India that he was a part of just about ten days back. The Indian government has released a statement, they have rejected all allegations. And I'm going to quote from the statement issued by India's minister

of external affairs here, they say such unsubstantiated allegations seek to shift the focus from Khalistani terrorists and extremists, who have been provided shelter in Canada and continue to threaten India's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Now for Canada, Hardeep Singh is a prominent Sikh leader.

But for India he is a terrorist declared back in 2020. The allegations against him, and the charges against him issued by India's home ministry are very serious, they say he's a terrorist. He had been sending funds to India to radicalize groups, and also issued the targeting of people back in India. This is going to escalate, Laila.

There is no two ways about it. India's parliament is in session this week, there will be outrage expressed there as well. And this is a huge lull in ties between the two nations. Remember Canada is seen as a very important and significant Western partner to India, but these allegations are extremely serious in nature. And this is not the first time that India has raised concerns over anti-India extremist activities taking place in Canada.

Now the Palestine movement, as the foreign ministry has mentioned in that statement, is a movement that is outlawed in India. It is seen as a movement of extremist groups coming together, and has been repeatedly condemned. There have been extremist activities in India in the past because of which this movement has been outlawed.

And you do see a lot of supporters in Canada, Australia, and the UK, and India has consistently condemned any activities by these outlawed groups across these nations. Back to you.

HARRAK: Vedika Sud reporting in New Delhi, thank you so much Vedika. The commander of Ukraine's land forces says troops have successfully broken through a Russian defense line on the eastern front.

They have liberated two key villages around the Bakhmut region in the past few days, but it's a constant push and pull. Military officials say the overall situation remains difficult because Russian forces are fighting to claw back every inch of territory Ukrainian troops regain. CNN's Fred Pleitgen shows us the scene on the battlefield.

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FRED PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ground combat in a place reduced to a wasteland by months of relentless fighting. Ukrainian forces released this video saying it shows their troops advancing near Bakhmut on the eastern front. Coming, cover me, a soldier says as machine gun fire rings out and later mortars rained down.

The Ukrainians say their gains here are small, but important, firing heavy weapons at the Russians including rocket barrages from combat helicopters, Kyiv trying to show they have the upper hand, a presidential adviser tells me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Let's not forget that we are talking about the army that everyone was afraid of only yesterday, he says. Today we are talking about a Ukrainian offensive in different directions.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): The Russians eager to show they are holding on. Russian state media releasing this video of Putin's soldiers in the ruins of Bakhmut, claiming they will hold off Ukrainian assaults.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We can see them in the forest line, their trenches, we're working on those targets, he says. We shell them with our mortars.

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PLEITGEN (voice-over): As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy embarks on his visit to the US, both for the UN General Assembly but also to meet with President Biden and members of congress, the Ukrainians are urging the US to keep up its support.

Saying aside from the longer range attacking tactical missiles to hit Russian supply lines, they urgently need a lot more artillery ammo as their forces were heavily out gunned, even as they try to advance. Speaking to 60 minutes, Zelenskyy highlighting the sacrifices Ukraine is making.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We're defending the values of the whole world, he says, and the Ukrainian people are paying the highest price. We are truly fighting for our freedom, we are dying.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): A tough and slow grind on the ground as Kyiv's military tries to inch forward, vowing they won't stop until they have ousted the Russians from all of Ukraine's territory. Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRAK: Well the Ukrainian president is now in the US ahead of the United Nations General Assembly. After his arrival on Monday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Ukrainian soldiers undergoing treatment and rehabilitation in New York. He also honored some soldiers with awards. Mr. Zelenskyy is one of the leaders said to address the assembly on Tuesday, it's the first time he will be attending the annual meeting in person.

US President Joe Biden will also be delivering remarks in the coming hours, before holding a bilateral meeting with the UN secretary general. Well Mr. Biden is the only leader of the permanent five members of the UN security council attending the UNGA. Ravi Agrawal is the editor in chief of Foreign Policy Magazine, and he joins us now from New York.

Ravi, always good to have you with us. Set the scene for us. There is no shortage of global crises that are vying for the world's attention right now. As this United Nations General Assembly gets underway, what will you be watching for? RAVI AGRAWAL, EDITOR IN CHIEF, FOREIGN POLICY: Oh, several things. I mean I think the sustainable development goals are going to be a big part of the next few days. We're at the halfway point, they were announced for the first time in 2015, 2030 is when the goals need to be realized. So everyone's looking at this year as a point where they're going to call out that enough progress hasn't been made.

I think the war in Ukraine, as always, is going to be something that overshadows much of the next few days, and part of the reason there is the fact that Russia's on the security council, it has a Veto power of course. And it has, perhaps single-handedly, destroyed the UN charter, which mandates that there will be international peace.

So if you look at anything that the UN deals with, right now, Russia and its Veto power, in some senses, stand in the way. There are many other big issues that are going to come up from the global food crisis, the climate crisis, all of which is going to require a lot of fundraising and money to be brought up. So those are just a few of the things that I will be keeping an eye on.

HARRAK: Now, as you referenced there, Ukraine. All eyes will be on Ukrainian President Zelenskyy who is expected to address the assembly on Tuesday. Do you think that he can make a compelling case for Ukraine and secure global support, especially from the global south, without seeming to diminish all the other crises that also demand urgent action?

AGRAWAL: He is going to try. He has tried many times. At the UN, at other forums around the world, he has spoken at so many different conferences that I have been at from Delvers to the Doha Forum, they have actively reached out to the global south over the last year. They've realized they need the global south, they've struggled to move the needle there.

I think the primary message that they have been trying to make and that President Zelenskyy will make tomorrow is that this is happening to us today. It could happen to you tomorrow. So they are going to push, not the idea of protecting democracies because democracy can often be seen as gray, not black and white, especially in the global south.

What they will push is the idea of sovereignty. That if you do not protect borders, what is there to protect? And that message I think is especially powerful to make at the UN, because of what the UN stands for, how it was founded 78 years ago.

HARRAK: A final question for you, Ravi, the world is facing so many overlapping challenges at the moment. Do you expect the so-called high level week to mark a return to multilateralism? And what is the state of multilateralism?

AGRAWAL: The state of multilateralism is worse than it's been in many many years. I think the world is fractured. The world is pulling apart in many ways. This has been going on for several years. The pandemic made it worse.

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Competition between the two biggest economies in the world, the United States and China, is polarizing and dividing the world. And what we're seeing over the last few months is that there are all of these other smaller bilateral regional groups of meetings, clubs, as it were, whether it's the G7, BRICS, the G20, ASEAN, all of these other smaller groups of countries that are meeting together, and trying to align on smaller agendas.

What this signal that this sends, is that it's harder for 193 countries to come together at the UN and get something big done. I think multilateralism is really struggling, there are a lot of important voices this week who are going to make the case for a return to multilateralism. And for the United States especially to take the lead in promoting multilateralism. Easier said than done.

HARRAK: Easier said than done. Ravi Agrawal, thank you so much for this conversation. And still to come, mass graves are still being dug for more than a week now after deadly flooding in Libya. As residents recount the moments when they suddenly lost their family members.

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HARRAK: Protesters packed the streets of the Libyan city of Derna on Monday, demanding accountability from officials after deadly flooding. Residents blame government officials for not giving enough warning for residents to evacuate in time. Reuters reports Libya's acting prime minister in eastern Libya dismissed all members of Derna's municipal council and has called for an investigation.

While meantime, volunteers are working to dig large mass graves to handle the thousands of bodies found since last week. Derna's hospitals and morgues were overwhelmed in the days following the floods, with more than 2500 people buried. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh is in Derna with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's all gone, they say. Derna is now a city of the dead. There was no time for final goodbyes here. Mom, rest in peace, spray-painted where that mother once lived.

In 90 minutes, a city and its people were left shattered. Here grief lingers in the air. And faces tell of the horror they survived, and lost they have yet to comprehend. Akram lost his brother's entire family. He now sits where their house once stood, it is all he has left of them.

[00:25:01]

AKRAM (through translator): I lost my brother and his children, I lost my neighbors, I lost my whole world, he says.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): He searched for their bodies everywhere in hospitals and by the sea. Akram breaks down as he tries to remember his last call with his brother just two days before the catastrophe struck. He says this is God's will, it's a harsh one they've had to accept. Everyone here has lost family, one after the other they share their gut wrenching stories.

Stone-faced and numb, Abdullah recalls how he held his ten-year-old son and jumped from one rooftop to another to escape the ferocious flood. He helped save families, but couldn't save his own. Abdullah lost his mother, his wife, and his two other boys. 25 family members in total, but he's only buried four.

Everyone here is on a mission to find the dead. There aren't enough search and rescue teams, it's mostly volunteers digging through the muddied rubble of these homes. They call passers by to join.

KARADSHEH: They believe there is one or more dead bodies underneath the rubble. They say they can smell it.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): But most of the bodies are not here, officials say. Thousands were swept away with their homes, and in their cars into the Mediterranean. Derna's idyllic sea front is now a staging area where they deliver the dead. Radia's not had time to process what she survived, she's been here since last Monday preparing the dead for burial. This is the hardest thing she's ever had to do, she says. She's recognized the lifeless faces of family, friends and neighbors.

RADIA (through translator): Is this Derna? It will forever be heartbroken, she says. We lost our finest, people used to come and look at our flowers, our jasmine. Now they come to a broken Derna.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): At a cemetery outside the city, more than a thousand victims have been buried in mass graves. They prepare for more. No family here, just strangers who prayed for the dead. But there is no time to stop, the bodies just keep coming. Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, Derna, Libya.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRAK: And it's been almost a month since Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash, so CNN journeyed into one of Wagner's primary, and most remote centers of operation, to see how the militia may be changing.

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HARRAK: Almost a month after Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a still unexplained plane crash, Russia has been moving to consolidate Wagner's operations across Africa.

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CNN's chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward traveled to the Central African Republic, one of the world's poorest nations and one of Wagner's first operational sites on the continent, to see how Wagner's work, and Russia's influence, might be changing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the Central African Republic, the message from Wagner is clear: it's business as usual.

Less than one month after their boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed in a plane crash, masked mercenaries still guard the president and cut an intimidating figure on the streets of the capital.

Faces covered, as Wagner protocol dictates, they are unapproachable and untouchable. These are the first images of Wagner fighters in the country since Prigozhin's death.

WARD: So they're clearly still very much a presence here in Bangui.

WARD (voice-over): That presence runs deep. The markets are full of cheap sachets of vodka and beer, made by a Wagner-owned company. The locals seem to like it.

WARD: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD: They say they don't drink beer, only Russian beer.

WARD (voice-over): We've come back to the center of Prigozhin's empire in Africa, right as his death raises questions for the regimes he protected and the mercenaries whose loyalty he inspired.

Our last visit was in Wagner's early days here. Run like the Mafia, providing guns and fighters, and propaganda, in return for gold, diamonds and timber. Using intimidation and brutality along the way.

WARD: That car full of Russians have been following us for quite some time. We don't know why. We don't know what they want.

WARD (voice-over): But in this lawless, war-scarred country, one of the poorest in the world, that ruthlessness and the security it brought, is celebrated by many.

FIDELE GOUANDJIKA, SENIOR PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Welcome to Berengo's (ph) palace.

WARD: Wow, that is quite the T-shirt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, beautiful T-shirt.

WARD (voice-over): Presidential advisor Fidele Gouandjika says the nation is in mourning for Wagner's dead leader.

GOUANDJIKA: He was my friend. He was my friend, best friend. A friend of all Central African people.

WARD: Why exactly was Mr. Prigozhin so popular here, in your mind?

GOUANDJIKA: Because our country was in war. So Mr. -- Mr. Putin give us some help with Prigozhin. WARD: So aren't you nervous, now that he's dead, that things might

change?

GOUANDJIKA: But Mr. Putin called our president. He told him that everything will be like yesterday. Nothing will be changed. Nothing.

WARD (voice-over): But according to a diplomatic source here, hundreds of Wagner fighters left the Central African Republic in July after Prigozhin's failed mutiny.

Those who remain, including his top lieutenants, have agreed to work for the Russian Ministry of Defense. Fighters have already been pulled back from frontline outposts to population centers in an effort to cut costs, the source says.

What's less clear is what becomes of Wagner's civilian presence here. This is one of the last places that Prigozhin was seen alive, during his final tour across Africa. It's called the Russian Cultural Center. Only it has no connection to Russia's official cultural agency, and was run until recently by Prigozhin's closest associate here.

Photographs taken on that visit show a new face, a woman known as Nafisa Kiryanova.

After days of asking for permission to visit, we decide to film covertly.

WARD: So you were here, then, when Yevgeny Prigozhin when he was here, in the photographs. There's the photographs of you with Prigozhin together.

NAFISA KIRYANOVA, ASSOCIATE OF PRIGOZHIN: Oh, my God. Can you show me that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: yes.

WARD: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it was just over in that corner.

There you are.

KIRYANOVA: OK, OK. That's good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this is Mr. Prigozhin, no?

KIRYANOVA: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How was he?

KIRYANOVA: Normal.

WARD: Do you think he knew they were going to kill him?

KIRYANOVA: My gosh. What is the question there? Who knows such things?

WARD: What does it mean for your work here? Does it change anything?

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KIRYANOVA: Does it change anything if -- I don't know, if the president of your country dies? Does it mean that your country stops to exist?

WARD (voice-over): She shows us one of their daily Russian classes. As we step back outside, we see a Wagner fighter.

WARD: Hi. Who are you? (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

WARD (voice-over): You can just make him out, retreating to the back of the center, where according to the investigative group, The Century, Wagner sells its gold and diamonds to VIPs, and manages its timber and alcohol operations.

WARD: Who is that?

KIRYANOVA: A personnel.

WARD: A person?

Can we see what's there? That's weird.

KIRYANOVA: Actually, well, what are you going to see there?

WARD (voice-over): Like most of Wagner's activities here, it's clear there is still so much that is hidden from view. We've pushed the visit far enough. It's time to go.

No matter who takes over here, Western diplomats say they don't expect much to change.

At the local Orthodox church, the Greek lettering has been painted over. Its allegiance now is to the Russian patriarchy.

And even in the skies above the empire Prigozhin built, Russia's dominance lives on.

Clarissa Ward, CNN, Bangui.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRAK: And coming up, an actor who made his name performing raunchy standup comedy shows, is now facing sexual assault allegations. Details on the controversy surrounding Russell Brand, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRAK: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has kicked off a weeklong visit to the U.S. and California, where he sat down with Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

They discussed a wide range of subjects, including artificial intelligence. Mr. Netanyahu also used the opportunity to challenge Musk about anti-Semitism on his social media platform "X," formerly known as Twitter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: I hope you find within the confines of the First Amendment the ability to stop not only antisemitism, or roll it back as best you can, but any collective hatred of the people that, you know, antisemitism represents.

And I know you're committed to that. I hope -- I hope you succeed in it. It's not an easy task. But I -- I encourage you and urge you to find the balance. And it's a tough one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRAK: Well, Musk said he couldn't stop all anti-Semitic speech before it's posted, but added that he is against antisemitism and, quote, "anything that promotes hate and conflict."

London's Metropolitan Police say they are investigating an allegation of sexual assault in 2003 after a joint investigation into the comedian and actor Russell Brand by three British media outlets was published Saturday. But they're not naming the British comedian in the probe.

While Brand has denied all the allegations so far, Claire Sebastian has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLAIRE SEBASTIAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Russell Brand won't be performing onstage for a while, his multi-city comedy tour now postponed.

The outspoken comedian and actor, seen here leaving his last show Saturday night, just as U.K. broadcaster Channel Four aired a joint investigation with "The Times" and "Sunday Times" newspapers, detailing allegations of multiple sexual assaults, including one rape.

One of the women who came forward, referred to as Alice, not her real name, says she was just 16 at the time.

"ALICE," ACCUSES BRAND OF RAPE: Russell engaged in the behaviors of a groomer, looking back on it. I didn't even know what that was then or what that looked like.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): CNN cannot independently verify these allegations.

RUSSELL BRAND, COMEDIAN/ACTOR: Hi, there, you 6.5 million awakening wonders --

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Brand has vigorously denied them in a video posted on popular YouTube channel before the documentary aired.

BRAND: As I've written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous. Now, during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): While Brand now has millions of followers on social media, portraying himself as a voice against the mainstream media --

BRAND: This is what we should be demanding of any democracy.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): -- the list of allegations against him center on his time as part of the mainstream media.

BRAND: Let me have this player (ph).

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): His career reaching new heights during the period the allegations relate to, his own promiscuity becoming an integral part of his comedic persona.

BRAND: I swear you our pledge, we rely on God as my witness, I will consummate our love in this studio.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): He made his name on Channel Four's "Big Brother's Big Mouth," airing in the U.K. in the year 2000s. The broadcaster said it was "appalled" and was determined to understand what happened.

The BBC, who parted with Brand in 2008 over offensive voice mail messages, said it was also "urgently looking into the issues raised."

And the literary agent Tavistock Wood, who had been listed as Brand's representative, told CNN they believe they had been horribly misled by him and had severed all ties.

As for potential criminal investigations, there are, as yet, no indications these are under way, either in London or in Los Angeles, where two of the alleged assaults took place.

The Metropolitan Police, though, says it did receive a report on Sunday of an alleged sexual assault in London in 2003, without directly naming Brand.

The Met has urged anyone who believes they've been the victim of a sexual assault, no matter how long ago, to come forward.

Clare Sebastian, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRAK: I'm Laila Harrak. WORLD SPORT starts after the break.

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