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Hala Gorani Tonight
Funerals for Victims in Sri Lanka as The Death Toll Climbs; Source Says Terrorists Had Plans for Second Wave of Attacks; Trump Says Democrats Are Going After Him with Nonsense; Trump Talking Again about Closing Southern Border; Israeli Soldiers Shoot Blindfolded and Handcuffed Palestinian Teenager. Aired 2-3p ET
Aired April 24, 2019 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:00:00] HALA GORANI, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. Live from CNN London, I'm Hala Gorani.
Tonight Sri Lanka buries its dead as the death toll rises to 359. We're getting new details about the suicide bombers who attacked multiple sites
on Sunday.
Donald Trump lashes out. The U.S. President says he'll fight all the subpoenas and go straight to the Supreme Court if any Democrats talk
impeachment.
And dreams do come true, Kim Jong-un achieves a long-held ambition, arriving in Russia, ahead of his meeting with Vladimir Putin on a slow-
moving armored train.
We begin with Sri Lanka where the number of dead has now risen to a staggering number, 359. We have a lot of new developments in this story.
We'll get to those in a moment. But I want to focus first on the victims, those who had gone to worship and has their lives ripped away from them.
They are being buried. This is where more than 100 people were murdered in the Saint Sebastian's church on Sunday.
We're hearing more about the suicide bombers, the murders. Sources say two were members of a predominant Colombo family, the brothers were the son of
a spice trader. Security sources here in the U.K. have named one of the bombers, Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed studied in England more than a decade
ago. This video shows two men carrying backs, walking through the Shangri La hotel. Will Ripley is there, what more are we learning today, Will?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's pretty remarkable the description that is coming out now of the people who are suspected of
being involved in this highly coordinated suicide attack with ties to ISIS. You mentioned that Colombo spice trader who owned the home that the police
were raiding, including the bombings of the Kingsbury and the Shangri La which were just a couple of hundred yards down the street right there.
As police entered the house a woman inside the house detonated her suicide vest as she was talking with officers. She is one of the nine suicide
bombers that were named by police. We are hearing from sources that she may have been holding children at the time of the detonation, so the
details continue to be horrifying. It's unclear whether she detonated the device herself or remotely.
But these are individuals who had the financial means, the education, and who had the ability to be completely off the radar of authorities here.
They were self-sufficient, there were able to travel in and out of the country which raises a lot of questions about this recruitment that's
believed to have happened on social media. One of the suspects believed to be a key figure was posting hate-filled videos online, videos that got
attention of the Muslim community here.
They reached out to Sri Lankan authorities going back as far as three years to let them know that there might be an issue here, that there was this
hate-filled diatribe online and the fears that that hate campaign could attract individuals. But nobody on the ground had any indication of how
expensive that hate campaign was. And frankly the Muslim community says they dropped the ball. They say the police didn't look hard enough.
They didn't try to investigate this. And then we have the confirmation and the apology from the Sri Lankan government that warnings from the Indian
government who had interrogated an ISIS suspect who talked about training one Sri Lankan man. They gave warnings on April 4th, and then April 20th,
and one hour before the first bombing here in Colombo, all of those warnings went unheeded.
[14:05:01] GORANI: And the U.S. ambassador is quoted as saying that there are ongoing terror plots. I wonder how much of a threat do authorities say
still exist in the aftermath of these suicide bombings?
RIPLEY: What we're hearing on the ground now, Hala, is that attention is turning to some of the other mosques in this city, the mosques specifically
attended by Sufi Muslims. The ones who were raising the alarm about these extremist elements of their own religion asking the police to arrest them.
Now some of those mosques are worried they could become targets in addition to the hotels that are heightening security. We saw armed guards like this
in force outside, just showing that there's a real state of individual lens right now.
There's since that alert to be on the look out for a truck or van with explosives. We know that authorities have arrested dozens of people at
this stage, but they don't know for sure whether they've arrested everyone and if there could be others hiding and waiting for their next potential
move. That's why we're looking towards Friday, the day that a lot of Muslims will go to the mosque for Friday prayers. It will be full, it will
make them targets and they intend to have very high security. But it's going to be a tense couple of days here waiting to see if the worst is over
or if more could be yet to come.
GORANI: All right. Will Ripley in Colombo.
Security forces say the bomber studied here in the United Kingdom. Nick Paton Walsh joins us now. More details on a bomber that we believe might
have been educated in the United Kingdom.
NICK PATON WALSH, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Briefly, certainly. And the security services I've spoken to talk about a man named Abdul
Lathief Jameel Mohamed as being one of these nine bombers, his nationality as far as the Sri Lankan authorities say is Sri Lankan. He's believed to
in the southeast of England between 2006 and 2007 studied briefly.
Not clear what he studied, not clear where, but a bit more of a picture of how the investigation is going as they start to piece together the
individual histories of those individuals most likely in that ISIS video and other security forces say at this point that they believe it is highly
likely that ISIS were linked to or involved in this particular attack. Increasing international focus --
GORANI: We don't know if these attackers were in Syria, were trained in Syria, you needed lot of know-how to pull this off.
WALSH: If you had a group were may have been involved in acts of vandalism, how do they make the leap forward in a matter of months in order
to be able to create this number of devices. There are some who say on the internet you can get instructions on how to make something like this. They
say that's practically impossible. You need a vast amount of technical experience to create these devices for them to go off in the way they did.
The travel history of these individuals is clear that U.K. security has been looking at the travel history of this man.
GORANI: And there have to be other people involved. If you're talking about nine bombers, you're talking about just as many drivers, as many
people who figured out the logistics of this. There must be a big network behind this.
WALSH: If you look at that group who filmed that video, there's a cameraman involved potentially as well, and those nine individuals,
including one woman, they may have taken taxis, until you walk into a place and detonate your bomb, it's hard to tell who's a bomber and who's a normal
person. This became a political fight inside Sri Lanka. The information we get from that country is tarnished by that sad path.
GORANI: Thanks very much.
Now to the funerals we mentioned earlier. Ivan Watson was there as the grieving families buried their dead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sri Lankans are conducting funerals for the victims of the Easter Sunday attacks. One
after another, there's barely time for everybody to properly grieve. This is taking place in an atmosphere of real insecurity. There are police and
soldiers posted everywhere here as these men carry the coffin of a child for burial. There are real concerns that there could be additional threats
to the Christian community that has been so viciously targeted.
[14:10:00] We've heard a controlled explosion of suspicious object in this area in the last couple of hours. Now the clergy of the Catholic Church
have been urging their communities to be peaceful and calm. This amid a claim of responsibility from ISIS claiming responsibility for these
unspeakable atrocities.
And the priests are telling us that as soon as they bury, as soon as they bury one of these victims, one of the hundreds of people killed, they ask
the families to disperse because they're afraid that they could be targeted yet again. This period of mourning is taking place in a real climate of
fear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GORANI: All right. Let's turn our attention to U.S. politics. We'll have more on the attacks in Sri Lanka in a bit. If there was ever any doubt how
far Donald Trump would go to stop investigations into his presidency, it has gone now. The U.S. President today announced we're fighting all the
subpoenas, accusing Democrats of continues the witch-hunt against him.
He warned if they try to impeach him, we'll go directly to the Supreme Court. Unclear on how realistic that is. Mr. Trump is speaking now at a
conference on the opioid epidemic. Earlier he said this on the White House lawn.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These aren't impartial people. The Democrats are trying to win 2020. They're not going to win
with the people that I see, and they're not going to win against me. The only way they can baby luck out, and I don't think that's going to happen,
it might make it even the opposite, that's what a lot of people are saying, the only way they can luck out is by constantly going after me on nonsense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GORANI: CNN's Sarah Westwood is traveling with Mr. Trump. She joins me now from Atlanta, Georgia. Sarah, even by the standards of the U.S.
President, that was quite a tweet storm that we saw today and yesterday as well. About everything from immigration to Democratic investigations to
the media, what is the thinking about what's behind this particular, you know, tweet rage that we've experienced and that we're reading?
SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Hala, I'm going to keep my voice low because the program is continuing behind me. He did make clear
on the journey over here that the White House does plan to fight all of the subpoenas that have been served for people ranging from former White House
Counsel Don McGahn, to a former security official who has been -- did not show up per the instruction of the White House to his scheduled deposition.
Because that committee, the Democratic chairman of it, denied him the ability to have a White House lawyer present. Clearly this fight is
escalating between Congressional Democrats and the President as the President believes that he's complied fully with investigations by
complying with the Mueller report and now is arguing that the Congressional Democrats investigations are purely partisan in nature.
GORANI: Thanks very much.
Facing a barrage of questions about investigations, President Trump is trying to turn the conversation back to a topic that he likes and his base
likes and that's immigration and border security. He's tweeted numerous times today about the U.S.-Mexican border, threatening to close it, and it
comes amid increased talks that the administration may restart its policy of separating parents from children when they're caught crossing the
border.
Let's bring in Jessica Schneider. One story I want to bring up is that of a 3-year-old found in Texas with a phone number written on the sole of his
shoe. We're starting to hear more and more of these really heartbreaking stories. Tell us about this one before we get to Donald Trump.
JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: You see that customs and border protection tweeted out that photo. It was yesterday, they found a
3-year-old toddler in a cornfield.
[14:15:00] They say they were alerted to the scene because there were reports of illegal immigrants there, but then when they got there, they
only found that 3-year-old toddler. All he had for identification was a name and number on his shoe. Still no word if he's been reunited with who
he needs to be reunited with.
The Acting Secretary, he's reflecting now on the family separations that sparked chaos at the border last summer now saying in two interviews that
it wasn't worth it since it resulted in the loss of public trust. This is Kevin McAleenan, he took this new post at the top of DHS just a few weeks
ago. Before that he was a Commissioner for Customs and Border Protection. Of course he got an up-close view of those family separations.
But while McAleenan is saying that family separations in the future are off the table, we've learned from a senior White House official that family
separations actually remain under discussion and a possibility when it comes to policy coming from the White House. That official saying its top
adviser, Stephen Miller, who's driving these discussions about possibly reinstating the zero-tolerance policy and the President is receptive to it.
The Acting DHS Secretary, he's saying family separations are off the table, but he did admit that the policy did result in some deterrence. But with
those record numbers of families crossing the border, he says that it really wasn't the right approach last year. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you have any regrets about the way that was carried out?
KEVIN MCALEENAN, ACTING SECRETARY, HOMELAND SECURITY: Yes. I think -- when you lose the public trust and you have to recalibrate at the
Presidential level, that means that wasn't successful.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did it work?
MCALEENAN: The enforcement of the law against parents who violated our border laws and brought children with them was effective. It reduced the
flow. But I didn't work in the sense that we lost the public trust in the implementation of that initiative.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHNEIDER: And so the numbers at the border are staggering, Hala. This is what was reported in March, more than 10,000 migrants crossed the border
just last month. That's the largest single month total in more than a decade. So this is a huge problem for the administration in general.
The White House trying to figure out how to stop this illegal immigration, stem this flood of migrants that keeps coming to the border, and as you saw
there, we're hearing that the White House has not taken family separations off the table but yet the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security saying family separations was not a wise policy decision and it won't be brought again. Hala?
GORANI: All of these tactics, the family separation, the detention of people asking for asylum once they've crossed illegally, none of that is a
deterrent. And the critics of the administration are saying those practices are actually cruel. Why would the White House revive or want to
revive some of these policies?
SCHNEIDER: That is probably the million-dollar question. But we know that there are those immigration hard-liners in the White House who have the
President's ear, namely Stephen Miller. He's the top adviser on immigration here and he's always advocated taking extreme stances even if
it means separating these families, separating these children from therapy parents.
However, we have learned that Jared Kushner, the top adviser to the President, the son-in-law, he's continuing more and more to play this big
role. He's had these meetings at the White House and "Axios" is reporting this morning that Jared Kushner is proposing this neutral immigration
policy where he would continue to let in those high-skilled workers, those immigrants who could work in high-skilled industries, but he would cut off
immigrants who would come here on the basis of family relation.
Trying to come to a neutral point when it comes to immigration. But there continues to be those hard-liners in the White House who are pressing for
those extreme measures here.
GORANI: Thanks very much. Still to come tonight, the red carpet is in place, and the ramp is ready, as an armored train pulls into a Russia city.
Kim Jong-un arrives for his summit with President Putin.
And a story about a Palestinian teenager shot twice while handcuffed and blindfolded. Israel says it's investigating. We're live in Jerusalem with
the details.
[14:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GORANI: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un says he's long dreamt of visiting Russia. That dream became a reality. Just a few hours ago. An upbeat Kim
arrived in his armored train in the city of Vladivostok. He meets the Russian President Putin on Thursday for the first time ever. Our senior
international correspondent Matthew Chance has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The North Korean leader arrived in Russia by train and was greeted with a traditional
offering of bread and salt. This is Kim Jong-un's first visit to Russia, something of which he said he'd long dreamed but only now got around to.
That timing so soon after nuclear talks with the U.S. broke down as not gone unnoticed.
His armored carriages trundled on for another seven hours. Eventually grinding to a stand still in the far eastern city of Vladivostok. And a
formal welcome.
"I hope this visit will be successful and useful," Kim told Russian state media and "during negotiations with esteemed President Putin, we can
discuss resolving the situation on the Korean peninsula and developing bilateral relations," he added.
Kremlin says talks focused on the nuclear issue had been scheduled for Thursday but the exact itinerary remains shrouded in secrecy. Visits to
theatre. A food processing plant. Even the zoo have been rumored.
Amid tight security, we were only permitted to view Kim Jong-un and his arrival from a distance. Let's reiterate, this is an important visit for
Kim Jong-un. Because he wants to show that he has -- he's not isolated internationally, that he has powerful allies, not just China, but now
Russian support as well. And he wants to send that message very much to the U.S. President.
It was the failure of these much-touted nuclear talks between Kim Jong-un and President Trump in Vietnam in February that seems to have given the
Russian diplomatic effort new vigor. Moscow says it shares global concerns about Pyongyang's nuclear activity. But this is also Russia's strongman
President Vladimir Putin sensing an opportunity to assert himself once again on the international stage. Matthew chance, CNN, in the Russian city
of Vladivostok.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GORANI: The Israeli military is investigating the shooting of a teenager in the west bank. Take a look at this photo. It shows the 15-year-old
trying to flee after being detained last week on suspicious of throwing stones. He was shot once in each leg with a pistol. Let's get the details
from Oren Liebermann. I've seen this photo a lot online and there are pictures of the teen in the hospital. He's running away and he's bound and
blindfolded. Tell us more.
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He's surrounded by at least four Israeli troops as well as others. This happens in the Palestinian city,
about five to seven kilometers away from Bethlehem. There has been a large funeral for a school teacher. The Israeli military says there's massive
stone throwing on Israeli forces as well as along the road there near the village. It's during this stone throwing that this 15-year-old is
arrested, behind folded and handcuffed.
Road there near the village. Road there near the village. It's during this stone throwing that this 15-year-old is arrested, behind folded and
handcuffed. As we see in the video, he stands up and tries to flee, and this is where his father says he was shot once in each leg. You can see
the 15-year-old on the ground there, he's been tended to by an Israeli soldier. Another soldier is standing by. At one point he pulls out his
pistol and tries to keep the crowd away.
There's very much a shouting match going on. At one point the Israeli soldiers yell, whoever comes closer, a bullet in the forehead. The soldier
says we have treatment of our own and a few moments later, treatment is on its way. In another video from the scene, you see the teenager being
pulled to safety -- to medical treatment. He's taken to a hospital where his father says he underwent surgery but is now in table condition.
Where does the investigation lead and what is the 15-year-old's legal status? Does he remain under arrest or released? If he was still under
arrest, he would have been taken to an Israeli hospital where he can be monitored and watched. Instead he was taken to a Palestinian hospital for
treatment. That's an answer we still haven't gotten yet from the Israeli military.
GORANI: What -- why did they shoot him. It's unclear to me. If he's blindfolded and bound, why did he need to be shot once in each leg?
LIEBERMANN: We know the military arrested him because he was taking part in the disturbances. He tried to flee, the Israel military says they
responded with riot means, and when he tried to flee, he was shot and the Israel military saying that a soldier gave him medical treatment. Why
specifically what was going through the soldier's mind, that I suspect is part of the investigation.
Well, we'll be looking forward to hearing more about that. Thanks very much, Oren Liebermann is live in Jerusalem.
Still to come tonight, the deadly Easter attack in Sri Lanka, were specific warnings mishandled? Was there a deadly intelligence failure? We'll talk
to an expert.
A promising young journalist is laid to rest in Ireland. Remembering Lyra McKee, just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:30:15] HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: More now on our top story, those Easter attacks in Sri Lanka that killed at least 359 people. The
source tell CNN the terrorists were planning a second wave of attacks. We're also getting names and other details about the nine bombers, sources
say two were brothers, in fact, sons of a wealthy family in Colombo. Their father is among the dozens of people detained. He's not been charged
though. Another bomber, we're learning, was educated in Britain.
Meanwhile, one of the two attackers inside the Shangri-La is described as the mastermind of the attack. One of them, by the way, one of the bombers,
a woman, we understand. A source tells CNN India relayed three specific warnings ahead of the bombings, the last one just an hour before the
explosions began.
Let's bring in CNN intelligence and security analyst, Bob Baer. He's also a former CIA operative.
Bob, what do you make of the fact that two of the bombers came from a well- to-do, wealthy Colombo family? We're talking, upper middleclass in Sri Lanka. What do you make of that in particular?
BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Hala, that's not unusual. One of the 9/11 bombers was from a well-to-do family from the
(INAUDIBLE) valley. Bin Laden himself was from a well-to-do family. A lot of Palestinian suicide bombers came from middleclass families. Some were
doctors, some were engineers, so that's not really a surprise.
But what it's looking more and more like is this was a politically protected family and the police did not act on the intelligence leads they
got from India, which were actionable. They're very specific.
GORANI: And specific in what way? As in your names, your potential places? I mean, do we know more about the type of warning that was sent to
Sri Lankan authorities?
BAER: We do, Hala. One is Zaharan, one of the ring leaders of this was on social media and he was clearly a jihadi of some sort. Not only that, but
there's reports out there that the Indians provided not only names but addresses. And there's only one reaction that police should have made and
that was to raid those places. Go knock on doors and they would have interrupted this attack.
GORANI: Because this was a big cell, nine bombers, which means they had a lot of support, drivers, potentially maybe even a bomb maker out there,
because typically the bomb makers don't take part in these attacks. That means people are still at large.
BAER: Oh, absolutely. They had people that drove them to the churches and to the hotels. Apparently, they were practicing on an island off Sri
Lanka. That's yet to be confirmed, but if in fact they were actually doing the training in-country, that's a huge group.
GORANI: It is. And if they didn't go to Syria and didn't get combatant training there, is it even possible to imagine a situation in which an
attack that killed almost 360 people happened with a bunch of terrorists trained and radicalized within their own country and online, is that
realistic?
BAER: No, it's not possible. Detonators, the explosives, the rest of it, it takes practice, it takes training, it takes discipline. Especially the
coordination and the timing. And the fact that there were two bombers at one hotel, this was not an amateur group. They had somebody overseeing
this, somebody vetting the suicide bombers.
The last thing you want if you're one of these groups is to have somebody turn themselves into the police. None of that happened. These people knew
what they were doing. And the chance of international -- from the Islamic State cooperation are very high.
GORANI: But Sri Lanka, I mean, we cover these stories all the time on CNN, and it's not a country that pops up a lot in terms of having sent many
fighters to Syria. I mean, we talk about Tunisha and other countries where there are thousands believed to have traveled. Sri Lanka hasn't really
been on our radar in that way.
BAER: Well, Hala, it's been -- it's a question of the civil war is between Hindus and Buddhists, the Sinhalese and the Tamils. And the Muslim
community was basically untouched by this. It was not alienated. It's a small community.
And for me, this threat, these attacks came out of nowhere. I mean, this last group you think would be radicalized is Sri Lanka. But this --
GORANI: That was my point, Bob. It's not one of those countries that came up on our radar a lot when talking about ISIS. So this really was kind of
a surprise. Yes.
BAER: It was a total surprise. Not a lot of these guys were actually in Syria or Iraq. Very few that we know about. They're a fairly peaceful
Muslim community. And how this came out, we're going to be looking into it for a long time.
GORANI: And also, we're going to be looking into it. And about -- we're going to be asking many questions about how to prevent it. Because when
something like this comes out of left field in this way, we feel helpless because we think we study the threat a lot. We think we have kind of our
finger on the pulse when it comes to where there could be attacks and then this happens.
[14:35:16] So what do authorities do with this -- with this type of event in terms of trying to prevent one in the future?
BAER: Well, so it's a much larger problem because you've had a half a million Muslims killed between Syria, Iraq and Pakistan and that's due to
violence, not just starvation and other causes and diseases.
So as long as these conflicts continue in the Middle East, as long as there's bombings of mosques in Christchurch, you're going to have this
resentment. It's going to boil up in places we don't expect it. And I think we're going to see a lot more of this violence and certainly the
Islamic State has not disappeared. Maybe the capital but not the state.
GORANI: Certainly it's lost its territory, but we've been saying a lot about how this means that you'll have returnees in other countries, not Sri
Lanka necessarily, but European countries, other countries in the Middle East or the Arab world and you'll also have a big insurgent campaign,
because ISIS wants to continue to show the world that it is a fighting force and a threat.
BAER: And as long as there's not a political solution in Syria and Iraq, that force will continue. And as you were saying, there's something like
45,000 returnees from Syria and Iraq that are -- that are in Europe and the rest of the world and they are still believers.
GORANI: Bob Baer, thanks so much. Appreciate you joining us on the program this evening.
BAER: Thanks.
GORANI: To Northern Ireland now where mourners are remembering a murdered journalist. Lyra McKee was shot by the New IRA while covering riots in
Londonderry, also known as Derry, last week.
The group has admitted responsibility and apologized. It said it was an accident. McKee's death has brought a rare sense of unity, drawing the
leaders of both the U.K. and Ireland to the funeral.
Nic Robertson is in Belfast.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): On her final journey, so many came to say goodbye, not just grief-stricken family
and friends, a president, two prime ministers, politicians of all stripes, an untimely farewell for a rising star who reached across divides.
NICOLA CORNER, LYRA MCKEE'S SISTER: God gave us Lyra, but what God didn't tell us was that we wouldn't have her for long.
ROBERTSON: The journalist, an LGBT advocate movingly remembered by those who loved her.
STEPHEN LUSTY, LYRA MCKEE'S FRIEND: There is not here in person that a starlight fills this room. She would be thrilled that all of her friends
could be in one place and they could finally get to be connected. Lyra was smart, kind, passionate, interesting, feisty, generous, funny, and above
all else, really compassionate. Today --
ROBERTSON: A far from average funeral for a far from average woman. Friends wore Harry Potter and Marvel memorabilia in tribute to Lyra's love
of the characters.
(MUSIC)
ROBERTSON: The spiritual secular service, one with a message to the gathered politicians, help unfreeze the providence's politics.
REV. MARTIN MAGILL, ST. JOHN'S PARISH, BELFAST: Why in God's name does it take the death of a 29-year-old woman with her whole life in front of her -
-
(APPLAUSE)
MAGILL: -- to get to this point?
ROBERTSON: A message to honor Lyra's legacy.
MAGILL: I dare to hope that Lyra's murder on Holy Thursday evening can be the doorway to a new beginning. And I detect a deep desire for this. One
of Lyra's friends was reporting and saying this, we've had enough. There's a younger generation coming up in time and they don't need guns in their
hands. They need jobs. They need a better health service and education. They need a life. Not a gun in their hands.
(APPLAUSE)
ROBERTSON: Outside, crowds came to pay their respects. At 29, Lyra was more than a child of Northern Ireland post-peace deal generation, she was a
poster child of a better future. Respected by many. Murdered most likely by a teenage gun-toting terrorist.
[14:40:09] Rare moments this day for both prime ministers to look yesteryear's war in the face and all the pain that goes with it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI: So senseless. Nic Robertson is live from Belfast.
And, Nic, the New IRA are saying it was an accident. Lyra McKee was caught in the crossfire because she was standing next to -- or behind enemy lines.
Does anyone believe that claim or is the belief that Lyra McKee was targeted?
ROBERTSON: You know, everyone I talked to is just absolutely scathing about it. The idea that the New IRA is going to tell and said tell its
volunteers to be more careful. People are just, you know, condemn of the New IRA here, they say there's no value in these words that the IRA is --
New IRA is putting forward, that if they really meant this, then they wouldn't -- you know, wouldn't be putting gunmen on the streets. It really
doesn't have a broad acceptance.
The reality is, however, there are a few -- a few, a tiny few people who just hold on to the IRA being the right way forward and that's such a huge
challenge here for the police right now who have really -- who have yet to crack Lyra's murder.
GORANI: Right. And so what happens with this group then? I mean, how do the police then hold someone accountable here? Are they getting close?
ROBERTSON: You know, the police would say they're having great success with their outreach. They've asked some people for their mobile phone
videos and said, don't worry, come forward and speak to us.
But another reality of Northern Ireland is the community where the catholic community where Lyra was shot and killed. Traditionally, it doesn't go and
talk to the police here. So people are reticent about it. They don't come forward, they're afraid, they're concerned. It's not what you do in our
community, the police was -- the priest here was saying that.
So the police are trying to overcome that. They said they've had success, more than 140 people have come forward. Bottom line, they've arrested
three people so far, two teenagers and a 57-year-old woman and they let them both go. They don't appear to have leads.
Right after the funeral today, the police came out and talked again to the journalist, again, with that same appeal for people to come forward. That
car bombing, the NEW IRA did a few months ago, the police have yet to catch anyone with that. They're able to hide in the communities here because
some people are willing to hide them. despite the anger against them.
For Lyra's family, this is hugely frustrating and obviously for a lot of people -- a lot of people in the community where this happened as well.
I've talked to some of them. They say this isn't what they want. But these groups can terrorize them in their own community, intimidate them and
it goes on and on and this is what's happening.
GORANI: Nic Robertson in Belfast, thanks very much. Terrible for that young woman.
Human rights groups are expressing outrage at the largest mass execution in Saudi Arabia in three years, 37 people were executed on Tuesday. One of
whom was crucified. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say many of those executed were tortured into giving confessions.
They include a man who was arrested when he was 16 years old. His crime was taking part in anti-government protests. Another was convicted of
committing violent acts in pro-democracy protests. He was given an eight- year jail sentence before officials decided to put him to death as well.
Still to come tonight, a compromise on 5G in the U.K. We'll look at how Theresa May is trying to balance both Washington on the one hand, and
Beijing on the other. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:45:58] GORANI: Welcome back. The United Kingdom has reportedly settled on a compromise over Huawei's role in the country's 5G networks,
allowing the Chinese telecoms giant to supply only noncore parts for less sensitive parts of the super-fast wireless network and this comes as a
group of intelligence allies gathered for a conference in Scotland.
Nina dos Santos was there. Nina?
NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN INTENTIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Hala, the countries that make up the so-called Five Eyes alliance of nations that share highly
classified intelligence, held a rare public display of togetherness at a cyber security conference in Scotland.
But just as they tried to present a public united front, well, back in Westminster, a round was bring over reports that the U.K. government out of
step with some of these partners was ready to allow the controversial Chinese telecom giant, Huawei, access to building limited parts of its
superfast 5G network.
The United States, Australia, and New Zealand have all said that for security reasons, they have banned Huawei from building parts to their 5G
network and the NSA representative present at this conference made clear what America's misgivings were.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROB JOYCE, SENIOR ADVISER, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY: We agree on a lot of things. And the strength of the alliances we can talk about where
we do have differences of opinion. But the biggest thing we agree on is China is a threat and putting Huawei in the sensitive networks is a
problem.
Where we're having the dialogue is how far do those sensitive networks expand? So in the U.S., we consider all of those commercial networks very
sensitive, and we don't intend to allow countries that would threaten us into those networks.
DOS SANTOS: When you say all of those networks, does that include what the U.K. may consider non-core infrastructure versus core parts of the software
for Huawei to provide?
JOYCE: To think the networks themselves, when you talk about the things and services that are going to carry the government classified information,
there is no doubt that we shouldn't let adversaries who would have intend to do us harm into those spaces.
If you get out into the commercial segments of the networks that are going to provide the cellphone service and the connections for self-driving cars
and automation, that's the part where we in the U.S. have concerns.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOS SANTOS: Either way though, the U.K. appears to believe that it can mitigate some of these risks if it limits Huawei's involvement in 5G.
Hala, back to you.
GORANI: All right. Nina, thanks very much.
Now, you've heard a lot about the anti-vaccine crowd and the potential impact that not vaccinating kids can have on the wider population? Well,
measles cases in the United States have reached a new high since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000 there.
The New York City Health Department just announced that in New York alone, the number of measles cases has grown to 390.
Our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The measles virus, it used to kill hundreds of Americans each year and millions
of people got sick. Then in 1963, a successful vaccine. This spotted van designed to look like the characteristic rash, became a delivery vehicle
for vaccinations. On it, a message, "Measles Must Go."
And it did. Cases plummeted. But now, measles cases are at their greatest number in the United States since the disease was eliminated in the year
2000.
DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: I'm appalled, depressed, and re-determined. We have to get measles back down
to zero. It's as though we've turned back the clock 10 years or more.
GUPTA: One large outbreak, New York City.
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NY): We are declaring a public health emergency effective immediately.
[14:50:59] GUPTA: Another just outside Portland in Washington State.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The thing that keeps me up at night is that we're going to have a child die from this.
GUPTA: So, how did we get here? From the elimination of measles to now the highest number of cases in 25 years.
Public health experts blame misinformation about the virus and the vaccine spread largely on social on sites like this one, stop mandatory
vaccination. It has more than 160,000 members on Facebook.
DR. PETER HOTEZ, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: The anti-vaccine lobby has been telling parents that children are getting injured from vaccines or
they're getting autism. We know none of those things are true.
GUPTA: With anti-vaxxers sowing doubt, increasingly parents are exempting their children from vaccines required for school, for a community to be
safe from measles, about 95 percent of people need to be vaccinated. But in Rockland County, New York, only about 73 percent of the children are.
That makes containing the county's outbreak difficult. On Capitol Hill, recently, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases warned the nation needs to do more.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, IMMUNOLOGIST: I consider it really an irony that you have one of the most contagious viruses known to man juxtaposed against one
of the most effective vaccines that we have and, yet, we don't do and have not done what could be done, namely completely eliminate and eradicate this
virus.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI: It is like turning back the clock as Sanjay said.
Still to come, it's been the training ground for generations of politicians in France. But now, the country's elite government school could be set to
close. We'll tell you why Emmanuel Macron plans to abolish his own alma mater, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GORANI: Sure. To France now and the investigation into the fire at the Notre Dame cathedral. It's been revealed that workers who were hired to do
renovations smoked cigarettes on the site, even though it was very much against the rules. But a spokesperson for their company refutes claims
that that's what may have caused the blaze. He noted the fire started inside the spire and that no one was there when the fire started, when it
actually happened.
As you can see here, workers have been covering the roof with tarps to protect the cathedral from rain. You do have a big hole there where this
fire once was and you certainly don't want to add to the damage with water coming through.
Now, staying in France, it is the school famed for training presidents, prime ministers and chief executives. France does love its elite schools,
by the way. And for many in France, a place at the elite Ecole Nationale d'Administration is a ticket to a very bright future. But that could be
about to change.
President Emmanuel Macron may soon abolish what is in fact his own alma mater. Melissa Bell has to story from Paris.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's an institution that has near mythical status in France. But according to the
French press, Emmanuel Macron maybe about to announce one of his most radical moves yet by abolishing the Ecole Nationale d'Administration or ENA
created by Charles de Gaulle in 1945, the elite school has since educated nearly half of France's presidents and prime ministers, Jacques Chirac,
Francois Hollande, Alain Juppe, Dominique de Villepin.
[14:55:04] Countless ministers have also managed to join the 100 students annually who get through the notoriously difficult entrance exam. As have
France's top CEOs like Societe Generale's Frederic Oudea and the CEO of Orange, Stephane Richard.
The institution was created to open access to the highest spheres of France's civil servants to the cleverest rather than the richest. In the
past, Emmanuel Macron has praised it for allowing him, a boy from the provinces to make it to the top. But it has become in France a synonym for
elitism.
On Monday, the French president spoke to the cameras about the fire at Notre Dame, he had been due to make another address entirely, about
measures to address the grievances of the yellow vests.
On Saturday and despite the leaks of those measures, 9,000 yellow vests were back on the streets of Paris protesting for the 23rd Saturday in a
row. Their numbers smaller than they were to begin with, but their demands more radical, and their mood, more revolutionary, none that we spoke to
were interested in the future of ENA.
CNN reached out to the government, but it declined to comment on the future of the institution. Matthias Fekl is a former minister and graduate of
ENA.
MATTHIAS FEKL, FORMER FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTER: There was a poll showing that almost two-thirds of the French citizens were against abolishing it.
They want to reform it, they want a more modern ENA, a more open ENA, a more international ENA, more socially represented ENA. But everybody knows
that you have to form the elite and it's better to have an elite based on meritocracy.
BELL: Already, the move is being criticized as sheer populism and yet, too far removed from the concerns of ordinary people whose economic
difficulties have led to so much social unrest these months.
Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI: Very interesting. Also one of the issues is it creates elitism. But critics say everybody is coming out of the same mold and there's no
room for variety or a diversity at the top echelons of political life but also of -- in the executive ranks in France. So if this in fact is
abolished, it would be extremely interesting.
Quick last word before I leave you. This news just in the CNN. We're learning that Deutsche Bank has now begun providing financial records to
New York State officials, financial records related to the Trump businesses.
Sources says it's complying with the subpoena for documents related to loans made to the American president and his businesses including at least
several Trump hotels.
Mr. Trump has vowed to defy all subpoenas issued to his administration on the federal level, but what is interesting here is that this is a subpoena
from the New York attorney general on the state level.
I'm Hala Gorani. I'll see you next time. "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
