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Manhunt Ends; Settler Holdouts; Fuel Truck Threats

Aired August 11, 2005 - 14:09   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The president of the United States at his ranch there in Crawford, Texas, spending time with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He came out for a moment to talk to reporters not only about antiwar advocates that have been camped out outside the camp there, but other issues at hand, like troop pullout possibly in Iraq, and also some other defense issues and political issues involving the U.N. and a meeting that will be coming up soon.
Well, first this hour, the end of a massive manhunt for that fugitive couple from Tennessee. The desperate effort to find them concluded in Ohio after a tip from a cabby in Kentucky.

CNN's Bob Franken standing by live in the town where the manhunt started. That's Kingston, Tennessee.

Bob, I was just reading a couple of articles that came out just within the past few minutes, and tell me if you've learned more about this with regard to the cabby. Did he actually check them into the hotel before he called authorities?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He did. And what's interesting about it, he confirmed to CNN that he had done that, explaining that they had told him that they had no I.D. because they had been involved in an auto accident. And so he did them a favor.

The reason he didn't bring it up earlier, he said, is that he was embarrassed. He felt like he had been taken just a little bit and showed some naivete. As far as the hotel owner is concerned, CNN is told that he didn't consider it that remarkable, that there's a state fair in town and that type of thing did not seem so strange to him.

Now, they checked in. Remember, now, that they were looking different than their pictures that had been taken. We have now new mug shots. And we wanted to compare to how they looked before this escape occurred.

Let's start with Jennifer Hyatte. She is somebody who had long brown hair before this. You'll see that the mug show which we showed earlier shows her now with black hair.

But George Hyatte had the same kind of adjustment, if you can call it that. He is a person that doesn't have a lot of hair. That's his normal way that he looks. But when the mug shot was taken today, it showed that he had something on his head, I guess, that would be resembling a toupee. So they had gone to some efforts to create a subterfuge and all that type of thing. The cab driver was probably one of the few people in the United States who had not heard of them because he had been too busy, he told us, playing video games and had not been watching the news as he normally does.

But in any case, yes, that's what we have heard about what occurred in the hotel. Nobody seems to suggest that there is anything that is particularly suspicious about that -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So what's next with these two, Bob?

FRANKEN: Well, they're not going to be coming back today, apparently. There is an extradition hearing that has now been scheduled in Columbus, where they're being held, tomorrow.

The sheriff held a news conference a while ago to tell us also that he didn't expect that they would be coming back. They will be brought back, as you can imagine, under very strict security, quite a bit of secrecy. In all probability, when they are returned -- and it's almost certain that they are -- their first public appearance would be at an arraignment. Whether that's scheduled as an extraordinary session or just the regular session is something that officials here are going to have to determine. Obviously, given the circumstances that have led to all this, security is going to be ultra tight.

PHILLIPS: Bob Franken. Thank you so much.

Well, the manhunt continues on the northern outskirts of Miami, but a half-dozen schools are no longer being locked down. Police in the Broward County community of Pembroke Pines are looking for a man who may have raped a woman at a bus stop. We're going to keep you posted on the progress there.

A killer walks free seven years later. Mitchell Johnson is one of two Jonesboro, Arkansas, school boys who opened fired on fellow students and teachers in 1988. He will walk out of a detention facility today without a criminal record.

Johnson and Andrew Golden killed four students and a teacher in that shooting spree. Both were tried and convicted as minors. Under laws in force at that time, both of them could not be held beyond the age of 18. But federal prosecutors used gun charges to hold them until their 21st birthday. Golden is due to be released in 2007.

Women's rights in the new Iraq. Just what roles will women have in the new constitution? We're going to talk about that ahead on LIVE FROM.

And digging deep. A sewage worker uncovers a site linked to the life of Jesus. We're going to show you what archaeologists are finding.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: Starting next week, Israel will begin pulling out of the Gaza Strip. This means that 9,000 Israeli settlers in Gaza and the West Bank will soon be required to abandon their homes. It's all part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's controversial plan to lay out the groundwork for a future peace deal with the Palestinians. But some Israelis insist they will never leave, not next week, or ever.

For more now, we're going to join CNN's Guy Raz near the Israel- Gaza border.

Hi, guy.

GUY RAZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra.

Many of the settlers have already started packing up and leaving, accepting the reality of the impending evacuation. Others, though, are more defiant, vowing to remain in the settlements until the very end.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAZ (voice over): To get to his home in the West Bank settlement of Sanor (ph), Israeli Shaul Hafan (ph) drives through Palestinian villages. His van is a moving billboard, filled with slogans denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and blasting attempts to make peace.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is our country, and we fight for our country, and we don't let nobody take us from our country.

RAZ: But in a few weeks, Israel's army will remove Israeli settlers like Shaul Hafan (ph). It's one of the four Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank the government plans to dismantle, along with 21 others in Gaza.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't go! I don't go. I don't hear what you say.

RAZ (on camera): And what, you're going to sit down?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I sit down, I take chain and put on my car, and do everything and don't go.

RAZ: Hafan (ph) and the settlers of Sanor (ph) believe they're fulfilling a divine mission: to go about life as if the Israeli government is bluffing about plans to evacuate them beginning in late August.

(on camera): And the day Israel's army comes to remove the residents of this settlement, most say they simply won't budge. And to underline the point, the settlers of Sanor (ph) are still constructing new buildings and even planning new neighborhoods.

(voice over): Shaul Hafan (ph) and his wife are not constructing a new synagogue. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here, Jewish (INAUDIBLE), second floor going to be the synagogue, and the other floor going to be a synagogue for the women.

RAZ (on camera): But Shaul (ph), the government says...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't give a damn for the government!

RAZ (voice over): Neither do the several hundred other settlers of Sanor (ph). Displayed in the settlement's art gallery, works that carry pointed political messages. A fruit bowl filled with grenades, for example, designed by local artist Julia Segal.

(on camera): This is one of your pieces.

JULIA SEGAL, WEST BANK SETTLER: Yes.

RAZ: I see it's a piece of cheese. It says "Made in Oslo," a reference, to, of course, the Oslo Accords.

SEGAL: Yes. It's a mousetrap.

RAZ: It's a mousetrap.

SEGAL: Yes, it is mousetrap, because we so love peace, so want peace, that we are ready to take it and don't understand that it is a mousetrap.

RAZ (voice over): Down a dirt path, a tent city houses young mothers and children. Recent arrivals here to bolster the settlement's defiance.

At times, the normalcy here is eerily abnormal. Just steps from the playground, armed soldiers guard this fortress settlement for now. But soon they will leave, and with them, the settlers of Sanor (ph), who will rely on God to intervene, but are preparing for a fight, nonetheless.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAZ: Kyra, for many ordinary Israelis, the settlement movement is seen as a burden, both morally and financially. The settlers, of course, regard themselves as the country's vanguard. What is certain, though, is that disengagement has brought the issue of occupation right to the heart of the public debate within Israel -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Guy Raz. Thank you.

New information coming in to us. Some possible al Qaeda threats. Our Deb Feyerick working this right now out of New York City -- Deb.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, since 9/11m officials have worried that a truck bomb could be used in some sort of attack against the United States. Today, the FBI in Los Angeles put out an advisory, saying that there's some information that al Qaeda could use trucks to ram into gas tankers, sort of an improvised explosive device, that it could happen in New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, and that it could take place between now and September 19.

Now, the big question that has everyone in Washington hopping, that is, is this information actually legitimate? A homeland security official tells CNN that it is being evaluated, but the source says that the information is uncorroborated and that the source is actually of questionable reliability. Another government official tells CNN that the information is not very credible.

Now, law enforcement agencies around the country received this advisory yesterday. And if nothing else, it will serve as a very strong reminder that people should keep an eye out for trucks parked where they shouldn't be, or, alternatively, on scheduled deliveries, that sort of thing.

The FBI was criticized for not sharing information. This is the kind of information that's not being -- that is now being shared. The question is, just how much of it is reliable? And that's what's being checked into now -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: What do you think, we will see more added security, Deb? I know that the U.N. is going to be having this big 60th anniversary celebration coming up around September 11, September 12. This might be of some concern?

FEYERICK: Well, absolutely. And you can bet that the security around that time is going to be intense. Whether we see that uptick in security now, that's another question.

But again, everybody -- there's so much intelligence out there, and agencies are always trying to determine just what really is credible, what is based on reliable information, and what's simply just based on sort of unclassified information that everybody is talking about. So a lot of different levels. Sorting it out is what officials are doing now.

PHILLIPS: All right. Deb Feyerick, live from New York. Thank you so much.

CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. Stay tuned to CNN for the latest information day and night.

Straight ahead, thousands of acres up in smoke. Firefighters trying to get the upper hand on wildfires raging out West.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange. Oil prices keep going up, and so do airline fares. I'll tell you how much when LIVE FROM continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Wildfires a major problem out West, as you can see. Crews battling this blaze near Interstate 90 in Montana. That fire shut down a power line and forced a number of firefighters to retreat.

In Washington State, crews are making slow progress against a massive fire in the southeast part of the state. It's already burned more than 100 cabins. A new fire in the northeast part of the state has forced the evacuation of nearly two dozen homes.

Hot, dry weather is driving many of those fires. A check now on the latest conditions out West and the rest of the weather. Let's go to Rob Marciano at the CNN weather center.

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Well, airlines raising fares yet again. Susan Lisovicz live at the New York Stock Exchange with a look on how much it's costing all of us.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

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