Return to Transcripts main page

Live From...

Celebrations in Nepal as King Announces Multi-Party Alliance; Explosions Rock Sinai Resort City of Dahab; Jury to Determine Moussaoui's Fate

Aired April 24, 2006 - 14:28   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get to a developing story out of Nepal now. We understand that there are celebrations going on in the streets of the capital, Kathmandu, and possibly throughout the country.
We understand the king has announced the formation of a multiparty alliance. Is this democracy taking hold in Nepal?

Let's get to our Satinder Bindra, who's on the line with us.

Satinder, give us the latest.

SATINDER BINDRA, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest here in the capital, Kathmandu, is thousands of people, thousands and thousands of them, are coming out onto the streets. Right at the moment, it's close -- it's close to midnight, but that's not stopping the celebrations.

We've seen just protests for the past 17, 18 days. People protesting and asking for democracy.

And just about an hour or so ago, the king of Nepal announced he would be reconvening a parliament that was dissolved in 2002. So, this will pave the way for setting up a democratic government.

The people here who have been agitating for more democracy are just overjoyed. They are pouring out into the streets. And literally, I would expect that in a matter of a few more hours, there could be 100,000, 140,000, 150,000 people out here in the streets.

Traffic is moving freely now. There's no curfew. And there's a lot of joy on the street.

HARRIS: So, Satinder, does this mean the end of absolute rule by this king?

BINDRA: Well, this means that there will now perhaps be a move towards constitutional monarchy. I just spoke with the army chief, and it's very rare to speak with him. And the army has been regarded the main power behind the throne, the power behind propping King Gyanendra, the king of Nepal. And the army chief said in very clear terms that they would be supportive of a constitutional monarchy and they would work very closely with an elected government.

So the army also saying very clearly that they would be supportive of democracy, and that is also a very significant development. In another significant development, the army chief also says that if it meant that the army had to sort of combine forces with insurgents who have been fighting with them over a decade, even that would be possible.

So a lot of political developments happening here, happening here very quickly. And even as I talk, I can see more and more cars coming out onto the streets. There's a lot of noise in the city, and my guess is over the next half-hour, next 40 minutes, as word spreads around this tiny kingdom, more and more people will start celebrating.

This is people power. People got together, they came out in the streets, as we've been reporting for the past several days, and now just pure joy out here in Kathmandu.

HARRIS: OK. Satinder Bindra for us in Nepal. Celebrations in the street now as the president there is calling for a constitutional monarchy, and is going to open up the parliamentary process to make that happen. We will continue to follow this story and maybe get some pictures of that celebrating that is going on in the streets of Kathmandu.

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Celebrations in the streets of Nepal, but chaos in the streets of Dahab, Egypt. Three explosions rocked this Red Sea resort town.

Let's go now to CNN's Ben Wedeman, who joins us by phone with the latest on the situation there. Ben, tell us the amount of people who were injured or perhaps even killed in this explosion, or these three explosions, I should say?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, what we're hearing, that there are as many as 100 casualties, including dead and injured. Now, the precise breakdown of that is unclear at this point. The blasts took place only -- blasts, the three blasts that were confirmed by Egyptian officials here took place just an hour and 15 minutes ago.

Apparently the hospitals are dealing with a large number of casualties at the moment. The precise number isn't quite clear. What's significant also is this is the third such series of bombings that have hit the eastern Sinai coast since October of 2004. The last one, of course, was this Summer on July 23rd, when more than 80 people were killed in three blasts in Sharm El Sheikh. So this third set of blasts is something that certainly has Egyptian security officials in a state of high anxiety.

NGUYEN: No doubt. Well, reading that, witnesses say they saw smoke coming from a market in the middle of this peninsula town. Tell us about this market, and the significance this particular time of day, because they are celebrating Easter.

WEDEMAN: Well, in this case, it's hard to say, you know, who is celebrating Easter, because, of course, the Sinai is a predominantly Muslim part of the country. However, there are many tourists in Egypt at this time. It's the spring break for many Europeans. The Sinai is also very popular with people from Eastern Europe, from Russia, who, in fact, would be celebrating the orthodox Easter that happened on Sunday.

And, therefore, there's a lot -- it's just the -- this is the right season to visit the Sinai. The weather is very nice. It's not too hot, not too cold. So it certainly is a high season. So there's almost certain to have been many people in the market area and throughout the town of Dahab.

NGUYEN: Any idea who may be responsible for this? We're talking three explosions. How close did they come to each other? Was this an organized plan?

WEDEMAN: Well, they were -- precisely when and how far apart in terms of time these explosions take place --- took place, we don't know. But this is really part of a pattern. The first bombing in the Sinai was in October of 2004 in Taba, which is north of Dahab, in which there was also three explosions, leaving more than two dozen people killed.

And this is --- clearly, it's is the modus operandi of the groups that are operating in the area. But at this point, we don't know who may have been behind the attack in Dahab. The previous two attacks we know evolved Bedouins disgruntled with the government, Bedouins from the Sinai who did have links, direct or indirect links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, that according to senior Egyptian security officials.

NGUYEN: Well, the information does keep coming up. And Ben Wedeman, we'll be checking in with you throughout the day as that information becomes available to us at CNN. Thank you for that insight. Tony.

HARRIS: And information just in to CNN. The jury has just been handed the case in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial that is going on Alexandria, Virginia. We will talk to our Jeanne Meserve about the closing arguments shortly. Still to come, inside the room where experts dissect the words of Osama bin Laden.

The news keeps coming, we'll keep bring it to you. More LIVE FROM next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: So should a man who rejoices in pain be put to death or be denied a martyr's execution and suffer the tedious demise of a common criminal? That's the dilemma facing a jury in the death penalty trial of admitted al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.

CNN's Jeanne Meserve has more as deliberations have just gotten under way. What's the latest, Jeanne? Can you hear us, Jeanne? Obviously a lot of construction going on there behind Jeanne. We'll try to get you the latest on that. The jury has gotten this case. They're deliberating. We'll bring you the latest when it's available.

HARRIS: The world's most wanted man has resurfaced sort of. Osama bin Laden is heard of but not seen on a tape that first aired yesterday on al Jazeera. U.S. intelligence officials believe it's authentic, and they hope it and tapes like it will yield clues to the speaker's whereabouts.

CNN national security correspondent David Ensor joins me from Washington with more. Hi, David.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: The CIA has a technical team that analyzes these tapes. First they make sure the speaker is really the person it claims to be. Then they dig in deeper.

That CIA team is not authorized to talk to reporters, but they use many of the same equipment and techniques as analysts in the private sector, people like Tom Owen of New Jersey.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): Tom Owen is one of the nation's top sound analysts. Using spectrographic equipment like that used by the CIA, the FBI, and others to identify voices.

Listening for clues on the recent bin Laden tape, right away Owen runs into something.

TOM OWEN, ACOUSTIC EXPERT: You hear that noise in the background?

It sounds like metal scraping metal. It's to eliminate noises other than the voice. But it's a little overused.

ENSOR (on camera): Visually, this is such a flat band of sound here.

OWEN: It's been compressed.

ENSOR: So the highs and lows have been taken out?

OWEN: The bottom is cut off and the top is cut off.

ENSOR: You think they may have compressed this and taken off the highs and lows to make it harder to draw any clues out of the tape as to where he's hiding?

OWEN: Right.

ENSOR: Do you think it's conceivable that a clue off an audio tape might lead U.S. intelligence to Osama bin Laden one day?

OWEN: Possibly. It's possible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: It is possible. Owen found engine noises on one part of the tape. And told me with a couple of weeks he could find additional clues. We were looking there and listening to the tape bin Laden put out in January.

We also spoke to a top FBI photo and video analysts with fascinating insights to offer. That full report on the real CSI will be on tonight on "PAULA ZAHN NOW."

HARRIS: Once again, As David mentioned, you can see his full report tonight on "PAULA ZAHN NOW." It airs at 8:00 eastern right here on CNN.

NGUYEN: Straight ahead entertainment news with A.J. Hammer of "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT." What's on top?

A.J. HAMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The MTV Movie Awards have been announced. The nominees, I'm going to run down some of the highlights for you. Also rapper turned actor, Ludacris not happy with how he was treated on the "Oprah Winfrey Show." I'll tell you why when LIVE FROM continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: We are continuing to follow our developing story this hour. Three explosions rocking the Red Sea resort town of Dahab in Egypt. We want to get the latest from a witness to this attack. Serge Loussararian is on the line with us, and he did witness the explosions. Are you there with us?

SERGE LOUSSARARIAN, WITNESSED EGYPT ATTACKS: Yes, hello.

HARRIS: Help us understand this at the scene. It is about 8:45 p.m. local time where you are, is that correct?

LOUSSARARIAN: Yes, more or less.

HARRIS: Tell us what you saw.

LOUSSARARIAN: Actually, we were just next to the explosions, maybe 100 meters from there. We heard the explosion, and then we saw a big light and a lot of people running towards the explosion, from the explosion.

HARRIS: Where did the explosion take place? We understand it was in a market area?

LOUSSARARIAN: It's in a big tourist area in front of hotels, restaurants and where the night life in Dahab happens.

HARRIS: Let me ask it this way. Give me a sense of some of the other structures and other businesses around where the explosion occurred.

LOUSSARARIAN: It's the main street where you have all the hotels on the beach, and where you have the restaurants, you have the bars. So it's really downtown Dahab.

HARRIS: How would you describe the scene? Was it congested with a lot of people, 8:45 in the evening. This happened about an hour ago? Is that what you're telling us?

LOUSSARARIAN: After the explosion we left the place, and now we're at the checkpoint going out of Dahab. We're seeing everyone coming out of Dahab, and police forces are coming in. That's what I saw later.

HARRIS: Anyone in your party injured?

LOUSSARARIAN: No, no.

HARRIS: And how about you? Are you OK?

LOUSSARARIAN: Yes. Thank you very much. We're fine. We were about 200 meters, 100 meters away.

HARRIS: Did you see what you would describe as a number of casualties in the immediate area?

LOUSSARARIAN: We saw the casualties going through the checkpoint. We saw around 20 cars, first ambulances and pickups, private cars and buses with injured people in them. So we saw at least two buses.

HARRIS: Serge Loussararian, a witness to the explosions in the Red Sea resort town of Dahab today. We will continue to follow the story and bring you the latest information.

NGUYEN: Back here in the U.S. the jury has begun deliberating in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. Let's go live now to CNN's Jeanne Meserve with the latest on this. Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It took the judge more than an hour to give the jury a very complicated set of instructions for this trial. There are three counts here. First a jury must consider three statutorily required aggravating counts.

These are knowingly -- the first one is they knowingly created a grave risk of death of one or more persons in addition to the deceased victims, the second that it was especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner, the third that they committed this after substantial planning and premeditation to cause death of a person or commit an act of terrorism.

The jury must find on one of those counts, one of those factors rather unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt. Only if they do that can they move on to another seven nonstatutory aggravating factors and 23 mitigating factors that the defense has put forward. Then the jurors will weigh all of those and come to a conclusion on weather or not Moussaoui should die or spend the rest of his life in prison.

The defense, at the conclusion of this, did make a motion, once again, to strike the death penalty. The judge refused to do that, saying she had litigated the particular matter they raised already.

But then she did something unusual. She spoke out in praise of both the prosecution and the defense, saying to the defense, "There has never been a defense as difficult as this one. You had an impossible client, who did everything he could to undercut your case. You have been great officers of the court." Then she said, "This was, I think, a truly fair trial, and whatever the jury does, the jury does."

This, of course, followed both the closing arguments from the prosecution and the defense, and rebuttal by the prosecution. The basic theme from the defense were those that we've heard in this trial, that Moussaoui had a difficult childhood, that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, that he should not be made a martyr.

They called him a sacrificial lamb in this case and urged the jury not to grant his wish of martyrdom. The prosecution rebutted that very strongly, saying he was not a sacrificial lamb, that he was a key player in the plot. They urged the jury not only to remember Moussaoui's own words, in which he refused to voice any remorse for 9/11, but said he would do it again and again and said he'd be willing to kill Americans anytime, any place.

The prosecution, obviously, asking the jury to find for death in this instance. The jury now has the case. Unclear, of course, how long these deliberations will take. Betty, back to you.

NGUYEN: We'll be following it every step of the way. Jeanne Meserve in Alexandria ,Virginia. This trial has been very difficult for many members of -- family members of those killed on September 11th. Let's take a listen to Rosemary Dillard, this is what she had to say after today -- after what happened today in court as the jury is beginning to deliberate on this case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSEMARY DILLARD, 9/11 FAMILY MEMBER: For a person to sit there and smile at the death of children, to make light of the pain and suffering of others. What reason does that person have to live? And to think it's going to make him a martyr, no. It doesn't make him a martyr. It makes him one dead Muslim man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: Very strong words there. Again, the jury does have this case. They are deciding whether Zacarias Moussaoui should live or die for his crimes. We'll keep you posted. The news keeps coming, we'll keep bringing it to you. More LIVE FROM next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: What do you know about Elvis?

NGUYEN: It sounds great.

HARRIS: You know, you might not know his name, but his music you certainly know. Phil Walden founded Capricorn Records, a Georgia- based label that helped launch the careers of Otis Redding, the Allman Brothers, Charlie Daniels and others. He helped create the southern rock sound of the 1970s. We learned this morning that Phil Walden died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. He was 66.

NGUYEN: And his legend lives on in the music that was sung. All right, now to entertainment news today. Reeg puts another feather in his cap, as if he needs there. And get this, trying to give Oprah a smack down? Really, that's just ludicrous. CNN's A.J. Hammer has the latest on these celebrity high jinks. You've got to be kidding me. Who is taking on Oprah, of all people?

HAMMER: Well that was very funny that you would ludicrous, because it happens to be Chris Bridges, known better to most people as Ludacris. Not happy with the way he was treated on the "Oprah Winfrey Show," Betty. In the May issue of "G.Q." magazine, Ludacris comes clean about his appearance on her show. He went on to promote the Oscar-winning film "Crash." He stars in that film. Well while he was on the show, Winfrey talked about among other things, the use of the "N" word.

Well Ludacris says he ended up trying to defend his use of the world in his rap lyrics. He told "G.Q." magazine, quote, "She edited out a lot of my comments, while keeping her own in. Of course, it's her show, but we were doing a show on racial discrimination and she gave me a hard time as a rapper when I came on there as an actor."

So you can understand why Ludacris, a little upset. Oprah Winfrey could not be reached for comment regarding Ludacris' remarks.

And congratulations today to Mr. T.V. himself, Regis Philbin. Philbin's going to be inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Television hall of fame today out in Las Vegas. The accolade goes to him for his significant contributions to broadcasting. Of course the veteran talk show host has been on television for decades. He hosts, of course, "Live with Regis and Kelly," which used to be "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee." And he has also hosted "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?" among many other television programs throughout the decades. Philbin is also up for a number of Emmy awards, those are going to be handed out on Friday.

And these awards are already out, well the nominations already. MTV has announced it's list of MTV movie award nominees for this year: "40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Wedding Crashers" lead the pack with the most nominations, five a piece.

And a number of other movies also nominated in various categories. Fans can vote for 2006 MTV movie award nominees by going to movieawards.MTV.com. Those awards getting handed out on June 8th.

Now coming up tonight on "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT," the nastiest divorce in Hollywood, involving two of its biggest stars. There are charges of pills, prostitutes and porn. "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" has it for you at 7:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN Headline Prime. We will get down to the nitty gritty of Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards.

NGUYEN: Well with a tease like that, how can you not watch, right, A.J.? Oh my goodness, we'll see you then.

HAMMER: We know we have you at least.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com