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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

American Arrested at Airport on Way to Join ISIS; Enterovirus Claims Life of Young Boy

Aired October 06, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: What about just simply acting on those thoughts, going to the airport, purchasing that ticket, clearing customs? Is that enough?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I do not believe that that would be enough. I think a federal judge would throw that out.

On the other hand --

BANFIELD: I've seen murder conspiracies where no one picked up any weapons or money. All they did was hang up the phone and say, "I'm in."

CALLAN: I'd have to talk about the individual case you're talking about, but the law says that basically you have to make a substantial movement in progress towards commission of the crime.

Now, how do you know purchasing an airline ticket, that that means that he's actually going to join the terrorist group? There has to be more than that, Ashleigh, to make out a criminal act here.

BANFIELD: So, Rick, that's one of the biggest concerns in terms of strategizing. First of all, people are perplexed when they hear Americans have the least bit of interest in leaving this and heading for that.

But, ultimately, what's the real story when it comes to the number of Americans who are in and around Syria fighting for ISIS?

LIEUTENANT COLONEL RICK FRANCONA (RETIRED), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, the numbers are really soft, and we've seen anywhere from a dozen to 100. And recently the FBI director said it's as few as a dozen.

BANFIELD: Closer to a dozen.

FRANCONA: The question is, why is this guy going to do that? What's the motivation? How did ISIS contact them? Did he contact ISIS? Is there someone operating in his area or is he, as we've seen before, self-radicalized? He finds them on the Internet and then he decides to go.

I was reading through the complaint there, and it says that he purchased a round trip ticket. So I think that plays more into what you were saying, Paul. CALLAN: Hard to say, Rick, because the round trip may be that he'll go

over there and learn how to make a bomb.

BANFIELD: Can I just be super clear on this, because words matter so often when we get into a court of law, when there's something sticky and tough to prove like this.

A roundtrip ticket was purchased for Khan. Big difference?

CALLAN: It may be a big difference, because if it was purchased by a top officer in ISIL and --

BANFIELD: Sent to him?

CALLAN: -- sent to him, and maybe there are instructions about what he's going to do. Maybe there's evidence in his house of lots of communications back and forth as a prelude to the purchase of the ticket.

So we've got to see what the evidence is. But I'm saying, attempt crimes are much more difficult to prove than other kinds of crimes.

BANFIELD: It will be crucial to see what those documents were at his home that were left behind, those handwritten documents by him and/or others, which I find so fascinating.

CALLAN: Yeah, that's what's going to make the case here, I think.

BANFIELD: Without question. Certainly, it was enough for probable cause and enough for an arrest like this.

I want to bring in our CNN law enforcement analyst, Tom Fuentes, who's joining us by telephone. On the phone, Tom, if you could just weigh in on this.

This is not -- it's not the first time that we've heard about a circumstance like this. There's been a couple cases in Canada just recently as well. But your thoughts upon hearing this arrest?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (via telephone): The FBI just arrested that woman in Denver just a few months ago whose intention was to go to Syria and join ISIS, so, you know, we've had other cases of this.

What we don't know publicly yet are all of the documents that the FBI might have at this point and they may not release because of not wanting to alert other members. We don't know if there were others that were being sent and having their airfare paid for.

We know that ISIS has plenty of money and they have a logistical support team. So if this person gets as far as Istanbul, they have the people there that can get the person into Syria to actually join the fight. So there's just a lot of issues behind the scenes that we wouldn't be aware of.

And, on the other hand, the FBI doesn't want to have yet another person go over, learn how to be a terrorist and try to follow them. Yu know, and the FBI director says that there's 12 people being looked at here in the country right now.

I ran surveillance operations at one point in the FBI. It takes a massive amount of resources to follow one person, back in the day when we were following gangsters, when I ran the organized crime program.

So to say, oh, it's only a dozen or it's only 20 or 30, that's a massive effort. And then how long does the FBI follow them? For the rest of their life? When do they stop?

We just had this issue a year ago in the Boston Marathon bombing. They put these men on the list of about 500,000 people on that list and they all can't be followed all the time.

BANFIELD: And, again, I just want to reiterate what is on your screen, breaking news, a young man, a 19-year-old man, arrested in Chicago by federal agents, executing a warrant at his home, finding documents they allege that suggest he's provided material support to terrorist groups, specifically ISIS.

They allege that he was trying to go overseas, ultimately to Syria, via points in between, to join ISIS, a 19-year-old man.

I want to bring in Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr with this. Barbara, you heard Tom Fuentes suggesting how much work this is to do the tracking, to do the intelligence here, in the United States.

Do you have any intelligence in terms of what the Pentagon is able to provide, whether it's here or overseas, where we have all of those military advisers and maybe, presumably, people that can be interrogated overseas to lead to connections here back home?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly the intelligence community is operating in that region, trying to learn whatever we can.

You know, while we focus so much on how many bombs are falling in what part of Iraq or what part of Syria every day, this is the part of the war that we do not see so readily.

What I can tell you is the intelligence community, law enforcement, the FBI, the CIA, they all -- the Department of Homeland Security, they all now have very active programs trying to understand violent extremism in the United States, what is attracting people to it, what the network may be, where the connections are overseas and try and figure out how to deal with it.

We know that even local police departments, state law enforcement is working with the federal government on this, going down into the communities, trying to identify these people, trying to track them, and basically, as you said, Ashleigh, trying to figure out what the motivation is for an American citizen to do this.

One of the big challenges, why people say this war is like no other war, is ISIS is very active on social media in ways that we never saw al Qaeda. They are very sophisticated. There are secure chat rooms. There are all kinds of social media websites.

And some young person sitting in the basement of their parents' home can have that connection with ISIS from their own American city to ISIS in Turkey, in Syria, in Iraq, and it's very tough for the U.S. government to find them and track them.

This is becoming one of the key issues in all of this. Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, doing the work for us there, stand by, if you will.

Again, more on this breaking news, a 19-year-old in Chicago arrested at the airport trying to board a flight for Vienna, Austria, and then on to Istanbul, Turkey. The suggestion, the accusation being that, from that point, it would be next stop ISIS.

The federal charge is in. He's 19. Will that make a difference in his defense? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Breaking news from the United States district attorney's office and that is this, that a young man, 19 years old, from the leafy green and quite and healthy confines of Bolingbrook, a suburb of Chicago, has been closed in on by the feds at Chicago O'Hare International Airport as he tried to board a flight for Vienna, Austria, that would connect on ultimately to Istanbul, Turkey. After that, the allegation is that his point of interest was Syria and the militant group ISIS.

He has now been charged. His name is Mohammed Hamzah Khan, and I said, again, he's 19 years old, a United States citizen. He's been charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, again, from just outside of Chicago.

I want to bring in our analysts again. Evan Perez is our justice correspondent. Colonel Rick Francona is helping us through all the military analysis of this. And also Paul Callan with the legal question.

I said before the break he's 19 years old. He left instructions, allegedly, in the handwritten notes that the feds found in his house to his parents not to say anything about his travels. That means he's there with his parents.

Is this going to make one iota of difference that he's so young and that his parents may be able to help him in this role?

CALLAN: No, I don't think it will make any difference, and I'll tell you why -- 19 years old, he's prime soldier material.

What the United States is trying to do is stop young men from joining terrorist organizations, so they are not going to give him a bye because he's 19. If you want to send a message, you want to stop 19- year-olds from traveling over there. BANFIELD: Yeah, and ultimately, you know, Rick, we're hearing yet

again that Turkey may have been the point of interest for crossing into Syria.

This was a huge hullabaloo this weekend when Joe Biden dared to suggest it, and the president of Turkey Erdogan was livid to suggest that he's been allowing a porous border.

FRANCONA: The fact that this ticket was purchased for him to go to Turkey and then infiltrate into Syria tells us that border is not closed. Although ISIS controls a big stretch of it, the Turkish military on the other side of that border, yet they are still able to infiltrate fighters, to and from.

BANFIELD: Yeah, and, Evan, I'm not sure if there's anything more that you've been able to glean from the affidavit for this arrest.

But what about those handwritten notes? I mean, that's really the devil in the details, the crux of this case. My guest is going to be in what the feds found when they executed that warrant.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTERS: That's right, Ashleigh. To Paul's point about these types of charges, often you see the difficulty is trying to prove intent.

Here, according to these documents, according to the affidavit that the FBI has filed in court, they have him, they believe, his handwriting. They apparently questioned him after he was arrested on Saturday in Chicago. He waived his Miranda rights and continued to be questioned by the FBI and provided information about some of the people he was talking about.

In these documents, in these handwritten documents, he also indicates the names of four people that he was in touch with and or that he was meaning to contact when he got to Syria. And it has details of his planned bus travel once he got to Turkey and to be able to get to the Syrian border.

So there's a lot here, and I get what Paul was saying earlier, that these sometimes are difficult cases. This one -- I've covered a lot of them. This one seems to have a lot more detail from the FBI's side.

BANFIELD: Yeah, so, Paul, that's fascinating. I'm not sure if Evan can tell us whether those four others are here in America or overseas or if that's even evident. Do you know if that's evident, Evan?

PEREZ: It's not evident. It's not evident whether they are here or not and whether these are recruiters or whether these are just contacts over there.

BANFIELD: Would they use this kid and make him squeal? Isn't that a great tactic? Grab a kid who's 19 and put the squeeze on him like you would in any conspiracy to get to the top or to get to the others?

CALLAN: Of course, this will be done. This is the end of his existence as he knows it. If he goes to prison for 15 years, for a 19-year-old, that is like a life sentence.

But getting back to Evan's point, looking at the statute, the federal statute says to prove this crime you have to prove that he was attempting to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

BANFIELD: Isn't your body exactly that when you're a fighter?

CALLAN: No. It would have to be more than that. Simply that you're planning to meet with them, I don't think, would make out the elements of the charge.

BANFIELD: But ISIS, Paul, is a whole other animal. I mean suicide bombers are the name of the game and warm bodies that can fight are exactly the material support that they need.

FRANCONA: And this guy is the gold standard. He is an American, speaks probably unaccented English, he has an American passport, this is what they want. When they get these guys from North Africa, they give them nine days of military training and send them out to the front lines. This guy will be used for propaganda purposes -

BANFIELD: Yes.

FRANCONA: Recruiting, talking to other Americans. This is who they want.

BANFIELD: That's what I mean. Paul, that's what I mean. Isn't the game different now? And I don't just mean on the battlefield. I mean in the federal courts when they're trying to prove these material supports for terrorism.

CALLAN: Well, a statute is a -- a criminal statute has to give notice to the person who's going to be charged of the criminality. So we're - you know, we're facing a lot of bad guys in the world. We don't change the laws or how we prove these things just because its -- this guy is worse than the other.

I think, if we're looking at his personal writings, there's probably something in the writings, giving the FBI the benefit of the doubt, that suggests he was going to provide actual material support and maybe - maybe they were saying you could make films for us, you could do a broadcast to the American public. That - that would be -

BANFIELD: You could pick up a gun for us. Isn't that enough?

CALLAN: Absolutely. But they have to prove that. Just traveling over to have a meeting with the bad guys doesn't make out this crime. There's got to be something more. And I'm sure there probably is, but we don't have that information at this point.

BANFIELD: Colonel Rick Francona, Paul Callan and Evan Perez, thank you for this. again, just stopping this breaking news that's coming in to CNN via the Justice Department, an arrest, a 19-year-old arrest, an American citizen, allegedly on his way to Syria via Vienna, Austria, and then Turkey. The allegation that he was going to provide material support to a terrorist organization and the feds named the organization. They said it is indeed ISIS. Nineteen-year-old Mohammed Hamzah Khan from Bolingbrook. Sadly a nice and lovely, quiet suburb of Chicago. We'll continue to update you on that story.

In the meantime, other news that's breaking today, a four-year-old American child dying, went to sleep feeling pretty much OK, really no symptoms of anything and did not wake up. Find out what killed this child and what's being done to prevent the spread of this disease that's been making a lot of headlines in just the last few weeks.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: With so much focus on Ebola, it's important to note that there is another dangerous virus that's posing a very real threat to children and it may be getting lost in some of the news mix. It's called Enterovirus and it continues to be a concern for parents across the country as this respiratory disease has now claimed the life of this beautiful little four-year-old boy from New Jersey. And what might be most frightening about this is that this little boy went to bed with absolutely no warning signs. He was effectively just fine, but he never woke up. And the cause of death was listed as Enterovirus.

The death of little Eli is the first confirmed fatality directly caused by the mysterious illness. There's no other suggestion that something else was afoot. The officials say that Eli didn't suffer from any symptoms, anything, before he actually passed away. The CDC says there have been 538 cases in 43 states and four other deaths indirectly connected to this illness. The virus may also cause paralysis in rare cases. The mother, Erin Olivera says three-year-old -- her three-year-old son was left with a paralyzed leg after a bout with Enterovirus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIN OLIVERA, SON HAS PARALYZED LEG FROM ENTEROVIRUS: There is nothing worse than watching your child who is crawling one moment and then, within a matter of 24 hours, not able to even lift their head off the bed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Joining me to talk about this virus is Dr. Alexandra Garza, joining me again, the associate dean for the College of Public Health and Emergency Medicine at St. Louis University. And I'm also joined live here by Dr. Amar Safdar, who's a professor of infectious diseases at NYU's Langone Medical Center.

And if I can start with you, Dr. Safdar. First and foremost, this is in New Jersey. It's close to New York. The first thing I thought of was, how on earth could Enterovirus operate so fast. This little boy effectively died in his sleep.

AMAR SAFDAR, PROFESSOR OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NYU: Yes. So the important thing to realize about Enterovirus is that they are fairly common. We see them active during summer and fall. BANFIELD: But different strains.

SAFDAR: By the end of fall -

BANFIELD: I mean there are hundreds of strains of Enterovirus, right?

SAFDAR: There are different kind of Enteroviruses and they keep on switching depending which year you look at. This - this --

BANFIELD: But this one, 68, is the one that's causing so much -

SAFDAR: Absolutely.

BANFIELD: And how common is 68? Because that's the one that's raising the fear.

SAFDAR: So -- you're absolutely right. So this has been around for a while. The first identification was in 1962 in a child in California. Since then, 1989 to 1993, there have been about 10 plus cases. So I think about 12 or 15. So less than 15 cases. So it hasn't been very active. So it hasn't really come up because we haven't seen so much of it.

This year is unusual because we are seeing, as you said, 500 plus cases and almost across the nation, 43 states. So that includes even a state that has got a one child, that state is included in reporting that particular case. And other states have reported more cases. As you know, in Missouri and Illinois, that is where they saw initially and reported the big brunt of the disease so to speak.

BANFIELD: Well, Dr. Garza, if I could bring you in on this as well. I think the biggest concern is that there was just no hope for this child. He went to bed fine. The parents couldn't even call a doctor to say, he seems to be sick. This has got to be a one-off. Is this - I mean I hope you're going to tell me, this is a one-off, this is not typical, and that people shouldn't fear what this virus can do.

ALEXANDRA GARZA, ASSOC. DEAN OF PUBLIC HEALTH, ST. LOUIS UNIV.: Well, you're right, Ashleigh. this was an atypical presentation. So mostly this virus acts like a common cold. Kids will get fevers. They'll get muscle aches. They'll have a cough, a runny nose. But it most - it hits kids that have respiratory ailments, like asthma, much more severely than it does normal children. And so this was definitely a very unusual presentation of the virus.

BANFIELD: Dr. Safdar, is there something that, look, as a parent, I want to know what I've got to look out for.

SAFDAR: Sure.

BANFIELD: I want to know what I have to do. If my son comes home from school, which effectively is a petri dish, let's be honest, children are no good with germs and protecting themselves.

SAFDAR: Right. BANFIELD: If he's sniffling and if he has a fever, am I to rush off and get him a test for Enterovirus? Is that the best weapon against this?

SAFDAR: Yes. So the kids that have developed really severe disease due to this particular D-68 strain of Enterovirus are the ones who have asthma, broncho (ph) reactive states where they have -

BANFIELD: They already have (INAUDIBLE). OK.

SAFDAR: They already have an underlying broncho reactive wheezing to different temperatures and so and so forth. So I think a healthy child usually, as Dr. Garza mentioned, the infection really remains as an upper respiratory tract cold-like infection, because a virus really behaves like a rhino virus.

BANFIELD: We'll have to - we'll have to keep an eye on this. I'm flat out of time. But thank you so much for coming in. I do appreciate it, Dr. Safdar.

SAFDAR: Thank you. A pleasure.

BANFIELD: And also Dr. Garza, thank you both. We really appreciate it.

Our coverage continues on these breaking stories that we've been bringing to you. I'm going to pass over the baton to my colleague, Wolf Blitzer. He begins right after this quick break. Thanks for watching.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer.