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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With Kendall Coffey

Aired February 23, 2002 - 07:05   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to the investigation into the murder of Daniel Pearl, Pakistani officials are vowing to find all those responsible for the savage killing of the "Wall Street Journal" reporter. Authorities are also still looking for Pearl's body.

CNN's State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Pakistani officials say the know the names of the militants who kidnapped and killed Daniel Pearl. Several suspects, including the alleged ringleader, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, are already in Pakistani custody, and U.S. officials tell CNN there are some good leads, but readily admit they're trying not to say too much.

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: But there's a also a lot of caution about what we say in public to make sure that we're not inadvertently divulging information or tipping our hand.

KOPPEL: The immediate goals of both the United States and Pakistan, to find Pearl's kidnappers and to find Pearl's body.

PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, PRESIDENT OF PAKISTAN: I express my shock and my grief at this tragic murder.

KOPPEL: For Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, Pearl's cold-blooded murder is an embarrassment.

MUSHARRAF: If the objective of these terrorists, or those who perpetrated this murder, was to move us away from our resolve, let me tell them that they are sadly mistaken.

KOPPEL: Just last month, Musharraf pledged to rid Pakistan of Islamic extremism, groups with close ties to Pakistan's intelligence service, called the ISI. That won't be easy, and some have wondered whether there might be an ISI connection to Pearl's kidnapping.

Sidestepping the issue, the State Department said its cooperation with Pakistan is excellent.

BOUCHER: We have seen a full-fledged, full-bore investigation. We would expect to continue to see that. That's what President Musharraf has promised again. And we would expect that to continue.

KOPPEL: Breaking her silence, Pearl's pregnant wife, Mariane, shared some of her own thoughts on her husband's murder. "What terrorists forget is that they may seize the life of an innocent man, or the lives of many innocent people, as they did on September 11, but they cannot claim the spirit or faith of individual human beings," she said in a statement. "The terrorists who say they killed my husband may have taken his life, but they did not take his spirit. Danny is my life. They may have taken my life, but they did not take my spirit."

(on camera): U.S. officials say it is premature to discuss next steps like extraditing suspects to the United States. "Pearl was the victim of some very nasty people," a senior State Department official told me. He added that this is why the U.S. wants and needs other governments to support the war on terrorism before it's too late for the next victim or the next target.

Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has joined the call for Daniel Pearl's killers to be extradited to the United States to stand trial for murder.

For more now on justice for Pearl's killers, we turn to former U.S. attorney Kendall Coffey. He's in Miami.

Good to see you, Mr. Coffey.

KENDALL COFFEY, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: Is there an extradition treaty in Pakistan?

COFFEY: There's apparently not a formal extradition treaty, but in times past we've obtained through government cooperation the transfer of important people, including, as you may recall, Ramzi Youssef, who was one of the masterminds of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

In addition to extradition in the sense of working with the government's consent, there are also other ways to get people here, and that's something that the American people are going to insist on, because we are absolutely heartbroken and outraged about this savagery, and the killers need to come here for justice as quickly as possible.

PHILLIPS: So you say other ways. Are you talking about past experiences when they've actually kidnapped people?

COFFEY: Well, for example, in 1993, several CIA workers were murdered by a Pakistani. He was ultimately obtained -- in effect, grabbed -- by FBI agents in Pakistan. There was no formal cooperation between the governments, but many have suggested that the Pakistanis were aware that the FBI was pursuing the guy, stood back, and essentially our agents were able to get him, put him on a plane, and bring him back here for justice.

So you get not only in that sense what you might call sort of a wink-and-a-nod abduction, you get in extreme cases, such as when a DEA agent was brutally murdered in Mexico, in extreme cases there can be actual kidnappings to bring somebody back here for justice. And of course the most extreme case of all was the invasion of Panama, where U.S. forces actually went -- landed -- performed a military exercise to bring him back.

But that won't be necessary here. The Pakistanis are cooperating.

And one thing to emphasize about the importance of bringing the criminals back here to be charged is that the very guy who masterminded, apparently, the brutal murder of Daniel Pearl was himself in prison in India for kidnapping Westerners. How did he get out? There was a hijacking of an Indian airliner and an exchange for the release of those hostages. That's exactly how Saeed was released in 1999.

So one of the things that is not going to help the cause of justice is having the suspects in the Daniel Pearl murder in jail in Pakistan, because that creates the risk that some further hostage- taking, some Pakistani airliner, something else could be done to try to free them by other extremists in that part of the world.

We need to get the killers here. They need to face U.S. justice as quickly as possible.

PHILLIPS: All right, let's talk about facing U.S. justice, then. You say that the U.S. does have the grace of Pakistan right now with regard to extraditing these people. A big issue here, confessions. Now, this is a sticky point, right? Isn't there a need for use of Miranda and other issues at hand here?

COFFEY: Well, it appears that it's not going to be a problem. It will be raised, no doubt, by whoever ends up defending these particular accused killers. But it seems pretty clear that in general, a confession given to foreign police officials can be admitted in a U.S. court.

And one of the amazing things here is that Ahmed Saeed Sheik not only, in a sense, confessed to various interrogators, but went into a court in Pakistan all but bragging about his complicity in this horrible act.

So those kind of statements can be used, and they may be the key to the case in a U.S. court in the prosecution of the accused killers of Daniel Pearl.

PHILLIPS: Now, I was reading that the Pakistani police did some things that I guess in the United States wouldn't seem that ethical when trying to get information out of these individuals. If indeed that is the case, can that be used in the United States? Very important information, no doubt. COFFEY: It can be. First of all, if U.S. operatives, U.S. agents, U.S. FBI in Pakistan are personally orchestrating or directly involved in methods of interrogation that would be fundamentally offensive to our legal system, that could be a problem. But there's a pretty big difference when the Pakistanis themselves, using their own police investigative techniques, are conducting the interrogation. Normally that won't invalidate a confession.

Now, as in anything, if literally speaking physical torture is used to extract confessions, that creates -- that obviously creates a big issue. But given the fact that it -- one or both of the suspects that are in custody so far have actually gone into the Pakistani terrorism courts and been proclaiming, effectively in public, their complicity in that, I think those are the kind of statements that seem clearly voluntary and would be admissible and perhaps could be among the most critical elements of evidence to be used against them in a murder trial, in a terrorism murder trial here in the United States.

PHILLIPS: Yes, a trial that no doubt everybody in this -- in the world will be watching.

Kendall Coffey, former U.S. attorney, thank you so much. Always great to have your insights, sir.

COFFEY: Thank you.

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