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Your World Today
Deepening Sectarian Divide in Baghdad; Virgin Atlantic Commits to Purchase up to 24 Boeing Dreamliners; Serial Rapist Sentenced in Japan
Aired April 24, 2007 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Danger lurking at every door for U.S. troops in Baghdad as they make startling discovery that underscores the Iraqi capital's hellish sectarian strife.
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: A shocking acquittal. Allegations of blood money. Britain and Japan react to verdicts in a notorious sex crimes case that stunned both nations.
CLANCY: It may not be the meaning of life, but it certainly redefines the meaning of sound. A cast of thousands gets Pythonesque in London Town.
It's 5:00 p.m. right now in London, 1:00 in the morning in Tokyo, Japan.
Hello and welcome to our report broadcast around the globe.
I'm Jim Clancy.
CHURCH: And I'm Rosemary Church.
From London, to Baghdad, to Tokyo, wherever you are watching, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.
For Americans already at odds over Iraq, the deadliest attack against U.S. ground troops since 2005 only intensifies the debate over a date for withdrawal.
CLANCY: Democratic lawmakers saying the time for patience long past. They have now finalized legislation that orders a pullout to begin within months.
CHURCH: That's right. But the White House says it will not accept what it calls an arbitrary surrender date, setting up a major showdown.
CLANCY: But first, let's get more on the suicide attack that killed nine U.S. soldiers in Diyala province.
The U.S. military says insurgents carried out a rare frontal assault on a military base, ramming it with two dump trucks full of explosives. The Islamic State of Iraq has claimed responsibility, the same al Qaeda-linked group that said it was behind the attack on Iraq's parliament just two weeks ago. In Baghdad, meantime, car bombs exploding near the Iranian Embassy for a second day in a row. Police say several civilians were hurt in Tuesday's attacks.
CHURCH: Well, in a city where the sectarian divide grows deeper almost by the day, being in the wrong place at the wrong time can be a deadly mistake.
CLANCY: Now, for many Baghdad residents, even in their own neighborhoods, they've seen them become war zones. They feel trapped, terrified to venture anywhere outside.
CHURCH: That's right. Our Hugh Riminton went into one such area with U.S. troops on patrol. And we caution you, some viewers may find some of the images in this report disturbing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HUGH RIMINTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This is no man's land. Once a comfortable middle class sector of Baghdad, it is now a wasteland. And living here is pure murder.
A patrol of the U.S. Fifth Calvary comes looking for weapons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're looking for evidence, evidence of shooting positions. It's common for them to hide weapons, things like that in abandoned places like this, because that way, it's not tied to their house.
RIMINTON: Weapons to be used against U.S. forces and also against Iraqis.
(on camera): This is effectively now a sectarian frontline between the Shia areas that are just to the north, up through there, and are encroaching now down on to the Sunni heartland of west Baghdad. It is here that so much of the current killing and effective sectarian ethnic cleansing has been taking place.
(voice over): It is a place with myriad dangers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going over there now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
RIMINTON: A mortar round lands nearby. But it is on a quiet street that this patrol comes across something so bizarre they have to stop. It is a young woman, guarded by her brother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unconscious? She doesn't look good at all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She looks unconscious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Breathing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She looks like she's starved to death.
RIMINTON: But the woman is not quite dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, I'm going to get on the radio with this. And doc, you go ahead and take a look at her.
RIMINTON: Her brother says her name is Sonia (ph). She has cancer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She needs an ambulance like now.
RIMINTON: She is 23.
His colleagues take up guard against snipers as medic Giovanni Alvarez (ph) goes to work. Slowly, the compassion of the Americans draws neighbors and the young woman's family into the street.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The driver of this cab (INAUDIBLE) to this -- to the hospital.
RIMINTON (on camera): They're too frightened to take this girl to the hospital?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
RIMINTON (voice over): While the fight goes on to save Sonia's (ph) life, the troops search the house next door. They find rocket- propelled grenades. The irony not lost.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a little of both. You know? You bring a little girl shot from a stray round one minute, and the next minute, you know, you're fighting the people that shot her. It's crazy, but a little bit at a time.
RIMINTON: While the arms are removed, Sonia (ph) starts to respond. It is not a happy awakening.
"I'm dying," she says. "I'm dying."
Some men are found with a car willing to take her to hospital. But her family starts to insist they don't want her to go.
(on camera): It's just another example of the sectarian divides in this city. The ambulance at the Shia hospital nearby is simply too scared to come into this Sunni neighborhood to pick up this young woman. At the same time, the people here are too terrified to deliver this Sunni woman to a Shia hospital. They are afraid she could be kidnapped there.
(voice over): Sonia (ph) waits alone while her family argues. Finally, over their objections, she pleads to be taken to hospital, whatever the dangers. And so she goes to a future every bit as uncertain as her country's.
Hugh Riminton, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Well, it easily makes the business headline of the day in the U.S. And it is being closely watched in Europe, as well.
Virgin Atlantic Airways striking a major deal with plane maker Boeing. The British airline will commit to the purchase of as many as 24 new generation jets -- the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and possibly 20 additional jets.
The multibillion-dollar deal is estimated to be worth between $3 billion and $8 billion. It represents another big blow for the already troubled Airbus company.
Now, simultaneously, Virgin's chief, Sir Richard Branson, is committing to making his airline more eco-friendly. Virgin Atlantic is going to be the first airline to start using bio-fuels in a deal partnering Virgin, Boeing and General Electric.
CNN's Richard Quest is in Chicago right now. And that's where Richard Branson and Boeing confirmed all of this a little bit earlier, right Richard?
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That is indeed what happened, Jim.
Yes, Virgin Atlantic is partnering with Boeing. The idea is to experiment and research over the next 12 months to use bio-fuels to power the engines on an aircraft. And Virgin Atlantic will lend one of their 747-400s for the experiment. The question is, is it realistic, and what sort of bio-fuel will be used?
Joining me, Sir Richard Branson, the head of Virgin Atlantic.
Sir Richard, we hear a lot about bio-fuels. So, what sort of bio-fuel are you planning to use on your plane?
RICHARD BRANSON, CEO, VIRGIN ATLANTIC AIRWAYS: Well, most people have thought that bio-fuels will never work in the air because ethanol, which is the conventional bio-fuel, freezes at 15,000 feet. But there are other bio-fuels, such as butanol, that actually doesn't freeze, and something like cellulosic butanol is likely to be, you know, one of the potential winners.
QUEST: Is this realistic, and will this experiment happen next year?
BRANSON: I think it's more likely than not that the experiment will happen next year. I think as far as the aviation industry as a whole running on bio-fuels, we're talking -- I suspect at least a decade off, because to actually create enough bio-fuels to park cars, trains, buses and planes, you are -- we're going to need a lot of biomass.
QUEST: You bought the 787, list price $8 billion. You are not going to tell me how much you have actually paid. Airline chiefs never do.
Why Airbus -- so, why did you not go for Airbus? Why Boeing on this? BRANSON: Well, at the moment, the Dreamliner plane which is behind us is 30 percent more fuel efficient than the other planes we can buy. It's nearly 65 percent quieter than other planes that we can buy.
So, this is a plane that we're going to buy today. If Airbus can come in with a plane that is 30 percent more fuel efficient than this, we'll certainly be happy to turn to Airbus again.
QUEST: Boeing seems to have the stronger hand at the moment, don't they?
BRANSON: Yes, I think that's a fair comment. I mean, Airbus were definitely ahead of the game, and moved ahead. I think Boeing -- you know, Boeing has come back all guns blazing.
QUEST: Nearly out of time. Two final points.
Are you going to cancel your super jumbos, the A380s?
BRANSON: No, we're still going to take those in a few years' time.
QUEST: You are going to take them?
BRANSON: Yes.
QUEST: And one final point, Sir Richard. Slightly unusual -- one airline, your rival, your principal rival, British Airways, managed to cut you out of the showing of "Casino Royale," the James Bond movie, when that movie was being shown on the aircraft. Were you offended, if not just a little bit annoyed?
BRANSON: Well, I have it on good authority that M is very, very disturbed by this, and that she's asked MI-6 to investigate. So I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of the story.
QUEST: All right. Let me reverse the question then. Would you cut out a British Airways plane if it was in a movie that was being shown on Virgin Atlantic?
BRANSON: Of course not.
QUEST: No?
BRANSON: No. We wouldn't be quite that childish.
QUEST: Thank you very much.
BRANSON: Thank you.
QUEST: Sir Richard Branson, many thanks indeed.
There you have it, Jim. A busy day for aviation here in Chicago, not only buying planes -- that's always exciting, when people are buying planes, particularly these sort of numbers -- but bio-fuels on planes. I never really thought of chip pan (ph) oil powering the engines over the north Atlantic -- Jim.
CLANCY: All right. We'll have you be the first to try it out.
Richard Quest our man on the move there, alongside Richard Branson.
Very interesting, Branson's comments there. But all of this a very important deal.
It's challenging the strategy of Airbus to build ever-bigger planes that service these hubs and leave the passengers to go to their secondary destinations. The passengers are more or less voting and saying, you know, I want to go straight to my destination. Give me a smaller plane.
CHURCH: Yes. And of course there's the environmental factor there. I mean, I thought it was really interesting. What, 30 percent more fuel efficient, the Dreamliner, and 60 percent quieter.
I mean, with the fuel efficiency, maybe we will get some cheaper airline tickets, too. Hopefully that will be part of the package.
CLANCY: Yes, but they won't be flying on the fats that Richard was talking about.
CHURCH: Oh, absolutely. Not for a while, yes.
CLANCY: All right.
Well, a new car maker racing up to the top of the world?
CHURCH: Still ahead on YOUR WORLD TODAY, a Japanese car company knocks off an American icon from its long-held perch in Detroit.
CLANCY: And Hamas fires its rockets toward Israel for the first time in months. Is the truce all over?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANJALI RAO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Blackman's dismembered body decomposing in a cave by the sea near a condominium owned by Obara. Her severed head...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: And a sex crime trial in Japan unveils horrific details in a case against a serial rapist and accused murderer.
Do stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHURCH: Welcome back to CNN International and YOUR WORLD TODAY.
CLANCY: We're covering the stories the whole world is talking about. And one story that is captivating two continents at last, the shocking verdict in a high-profile sex crime trial in Japan.
CHURCH: That's right. The man at the center of the case is a successful Japanese businessman-turned-serial-rapist.
CLANCY: A court ruled that Joji Obara was guilty of raping nine women and causing the death of one of those victims.
CHURCH: That's right. But it also found that he had nothing to do with the death of a young British woman, Lucie Blackman. And her family is furious.
CLANCY: We get more now. Anjali Rao filed this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAO (voice over): Lucie Blackman, as most will choose to remember her, young and full of life. A former British Airways flight attendant, she was working in Tokyo as a bar hostess when she disappeared in 2000. Her case attracted heavy media attention, especially in her home country of Britain.
Joji Obara was arrested in 2001 over the death of Lucie Blackman, charged not with murder, but a lesser charge of rape, causing death. But the court today acquitted him, saying there wasn't enough evidence linking Obara to Blackman's death.
During the Blackman investigation, police found evidence that Obara committed a series of other assaults. The court found him guilty of nine rapes and sentenced him to life in prison. Perhaps a bitter irony that Blackman's was not one of them.
This is where Blackman was last seen, Tokyo's bar district of Roppongi. Blackman was a hostess in a club where men pay to drink and chat with women. Blackman told coworkers she was going for a drive with a man.
She never returned, but her remains were found seven months later. Blackman's dismembered body decomposing in a cave by the sea near a condominium owned by Obara. Her severed head was found encased in concrete.
Obara has admitted to being with Blackman that night but says she was fine when she left him. Prosecutors said Obara drugged Blackman and raped her while she was unconscious. Lucie Blackman's father and sister were in Tokyo for the verdict, and on Monday they visited the cave where her remains were found.
TIM BLACKMAN, LUCIE BLACKMAN'S FATHER: We said how we don't feel sad, really. We were saying how Lucie would have found so many of the experiences we've had coming down here to be amusing, and she would have laughed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Trying to get over the rocks.
BLACKMAN: Yes, we were laughing when we were trying to approach the rocks, because if Lucie had actually been getting across the rocks with us, she would have been hysterical, wouldn't she? She would have undoubtedly had some high heels on, and it would have been a very entertaining few moments. And we feel that here with Lucie, really.
RAO: Since her disappearance, Tim Blackman has set up a group to advise young people on safety when overseas. But he's also attracted controversy for accepting $850,000 from one of Obara's friends.
His ex-wife, Lucie's mother, has called it blood money.
(on camera): Lucie's mother, Jane Stern (ph), was not in Japan for today's verdict. But she has previously said, "To lose a child and know her body was desecrated in such an evil way is the greatest and most unrelenting pain I've ever had to endure."
Though Joji Obara may well spend the rest of his life in prison, the fact that Lucie's killer could go unpunished will surely bring new heartbreak for the Blackman family.
Anjali Rao, CNN, Tokyo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: That's a disturbing story.
This is YOUR WORLD TODAY, where we go beyond the headlines to bring you the news of the day.
CLANCY: And coming up, a milestone for Toyota. The Japanese automaker surpassing its biggest rival for the very first time in a quarter. Is it the start of a trend? That's the big question.
Also ahead...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At least 4,382.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Kudos to the coconut chorus. Thousands of Monty Python fans make sweet music and set a new record in the process.
Do stay with us for that.
(NEWSBREAK)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: Hello and welcome back, everyone, joining us from more than 200 countries and territories around the globe, including the U.S.
CHURCH: That's right. This is YOUR WORLD TODAY.
I'm Rosemary Church.
CLANCY: I'm Jim Clancy.
CHURCH: All right. With much of the world focused on the daily violence in Iraq, a key player on the political scene may be growing weaker by the day.
Stephen Frazier has some "Insight" -- Stephen.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, he was never the strongest prime minister, beholden to too many interest groups. But now there are growing signs that Nuri al-Maliki is wearing thin the patience of his supporters all the way from Baghdad to Washington.
Will he deliver on the promises he committed to, these now infamous milestones, or benchmarks?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: The president used to talk a lot about establishing benchmarks for the Iraqi people, the Iraqi government. Yet, despite our surge in troops and spending, they have failed to take meaningful steps toward achieving them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FRAZIER: Well, here is how the Nuri al-Maliki government is being judged now. We have made up a chart showing the political benchmarks the Bush administration and Democrats in Congress have set for him.
Let's start with oil revenues. There is progress there, mixed. Ten million dollars in the bank, and a law drafted by the cabinet that would share the wealth out among Iraq's key factions by the end of 2006. Kurds control oilfields in the north, Shias control oil in the south, Sunnis control nothing when it comes to oil, and they need this law to see any cut of the money that oil exports will bring.
But the law is actually stalled in Parliament, and a former Iraqi prime minister has come out against it.
Next up, reversing de-Baathification. Once again, mixed results. This would bring back Baath Party members that were kicked out of government after Saddam's fall, the professionals with practical experience in running things, making things happen. Without them, a lot of ministries from public utilities to education are actually led by people with scant capacity to get much done.
There is a draft bill on this topic, but even a key parliament member says he hasn't seen it, and a powerful Shia cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, opposes it.
Disbanding the militias. A top priority for Americans. And while the U.S. and Iraqi military has been cracking down on them, there is no progress on a law or any political mechanism that would outlaw them or limit them or require that they disarm.
And, finally, a plan for national reconciliation. No progress here, either. Not yet, anyway. The prime minister did announce a plan that included some elements such as amnesty for insurgents who never attack civilians. The plan was supposed to be in place by March but nothing of the substance that U.S. officials want has materialized.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GATES, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: I'm sympathetic with some of the challenges that they face, but by the same token, to pick up General Petraeus' theme, the clock is ticking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FRAZIER: Well that criticism of Mr. Maliki now extends all the way to his home turf, with one Shiite lawmaker telling a U.S. newspaper the Maliki government is incompetent, paralyzed, and not likely to be around much longer. One member of the Iraq Study Group says that means it's time to put pressure on his critics and his political opponents, not just on him.
CHURCH: OK, one thing to say that, how are they going to do that? How are they suggesting that pressure can be applied?
FRAZIER: Well, not by the U.S. apparently because that's getting increasingly discredited there. Losing credibility. But perhaps with a lot of pressure from Iraq's neighbors. Iran and Syria, which of course have a lot of influence with specific groups inside Iraq plus Turkey, which has a lot of influence with Kurds, plus, and we don't hear this much, Saudi Arabia, which can offer huge financial incentives to political blocs willing to compromise.
CHURCH: All right. Stephen Frazier, thanks for the insight.
FRAZIER: You bet.
CHURCH: Jim?
CLANCY: Well, staying in the Middle East now, the military wing of Hamas saying it's been lobbing rockets at Israel as the Jewish state celebrates its Independence Day. This is the latest sign in brewing trouble and a possible end to five months of relative, but not total calm. Ben Wedeman has more for us from Jerusalem.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Video from Hamas' military wings shows missiles and mortar rounds being fired from Gaza, presumably into Israel.
Most fell short of their target. There were no casualties or damage on the Israeli side. But the barrage is yet another sign of the erosion of a cease-fire worked out last November between militants and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, aimed at halting militant rocket attacks on Israel, and preventing Israel's often bloody counterattacks. Over the weekend, Israeli operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank killed nine Palestinians, civilians, as well as militants. Hamas' military wing vowed revenge.
"What happened today is not the end of the truce," a Hamas spokesman in Gaza declares. "Rather, it is a simple response to the crimes of the occupation. The occupation," meaning Israel, "ended the truce, not us."
This is the first time since November that Hamas' military wing fired upon Israel. And occurred just hours after Israelis began to celebrate their 59th Independence Day. As the country begins its 60th year of existence, peace seems as elusive as ever.
(on camera): An Israeli army source claimed a Hamas' missile and mortar attack was part of a larger operation aimed at kidnapping another Israeli soldier. An operation that almost certainly would have sparked a massive Israeli response.
(voice-over): Militants in Gaza are currently holding 20-year- old Israeli army Corporal Gilad Shilat, captured on the border with Gaza last June.
His capture sparked weeks of Israeli ground and air operations in Gaza which killed hundreds of Palestinians, destroyed Gaza's only power plant, and leveled many of its bridges.
With the cease fire almost, if not already shattered, a replay of last summer's fighting seems a definite possibility. Ben Wedeman, CNN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CLANCY: You look at those images, and it all looks the same. The same that we are so used to seeing in the Middle East. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Let's get some perspective on the latest events from another eyewitness.
We'd like to bring in Vice Premier Shimon Peres, former Israeli prime minister. He joins us now from Tel Aviv. Thanks very much for being with us, Mr. Peres.
On this, the 59th anniversary of Israel's independence everyone says the priority is peace. But are they willing to accept what it will take to get it?
SHIMON PERES, ISRAELI VICE PREMIER: Well, it looks like we will have to continue to make very difficult decisions, before we shall have it. You know, and the balance of the 59 years of existence of the State of Israel comprises five wars, three intifadas and two peace agreements.
It looked very difficult to overcome the dangers, and it looked almost hopeless to arrive to peace. Yet, we did it, and the balance remains. We shall have difficulties, but we shall not give up the (inaudible) hope and the hope for peace. CLANCY: You know, we are back to the point where the Israelis say they have no partner, the Palestinians say the Israelis are -- they use the peace process in order to expand the settlements, to create more facts on the ground. Both sides are right. You have talked about how weak the Palestinians are, but once again, they are blaming the Israelis for the breakdown of this latest truce. Listen to what the prime minister had to say a little bit earlier, Mr. Haniya.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISMAIL HANIYA, PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We made great efforts of keeping the truce. And there was a positive Palestinian position. But unfortunately, this position was faced by expanding the aggression and escalating it against the Palestinian people. It was not a Palestinian problem. It is an Israeli problem.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CLANCY: Now, he was talking about the raids that were carried out in the northern West Bank, and also there was a missile strike in Gaza. Israel, of course, the position of the government, these are necessary?
PERES: Well, you know, this government has dismantled all the settlements in Gaza. It used power. It wasn't easy. Our army left Gaza completely, and the call was for land for peace. We gave the land, we didn't get the peace. They continued all the time to fire rockets at Israel.
Then, the policy of the current government is not to build anymore new settlements, and the policy of the government was declared clearly that we are for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the side of the Israeli state.
The only chance for both sides is to negotiate. By exchanging fire, people will lose their lives, people will suffer, nothing will be achieved.
In my eyes, the most important one of the Palestinians is there are military and political division. They have a united government in the administrative sense, but divided politically, and divided militarily. Unless they are united process (ph), they cannot really appear as a partner.
CLANCY: You know, you refer to it there, saying that the land for peace, obviously, didn't work in Gaza. Hasn't quieted the rocket attacks that are coming from the Gaza Strip into Israel proper. Very true point.
But you talk about, you know, you have a policy there will be no more settlements. But thousands of homes have been left. They have been ordered. Land will be confiscated to expand existing settlements. And there's questions whether this government is real little serious or if it wants to delay the whole notion. Take peace talks off the table and continue on to isolate the Palestinians and slowly but surely push them aside.
PERES: I know the government as a whole, I know each member of the government individually. I assure you that all of us without exception want to bring an end to the war, to the belligerency. We don't want to control the Palestinian lives. We want to give back most of the land. We are very serious, historically and otherwise.
Maybe we have to introduce an additional dimension to the peacemaking, and that is the economic one. Land is no more the most important economic feature in our life. And if we should create economic development and coordination, I think all the parties (ph), the Jordanians, the Palestinians and the Israelis, can live in peace and live in affluence.
CLANCY: Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres. Mr. Peres, as always, thank you very much for being with us. Some perspective there on the anniversary, the 59th anniversary of Israel's independence.
CHURCH: All right, just ahead on YOUR WORLD TODAY, a distraught mother worries about her son.
CLANCY: He is in Nicaraguan jail.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every meal, I think of him, and if he's not eating. Every ice cube, every cold glass of anything, he doesn't have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CLANCY: It is a case with many twists and turns. This latest, a cruel one for Eric Volz's family.
CHURCH: But first, the land of make believe comes to Trafalgar Square. A musical interlude you just have to hear to believe. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: Well, as the song goes, there's legal limit to the snow in Camelot. Well, there's definitely no limit to the coconuts in Trafalgar Square.
CHURCH: That's right. Now we know that sounds bizarre, but in Spamalot that's how things are. Alphonso Van Marsh has this rather nutty tale.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALPHONSO VAN MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And now, for something completely different. Thousands of Monty Python fans, some clearly more hard core than others, gathering at London's Trafalgar Square. Bent on setting a world record for the number of people clapping empty coconut halves together as if to form a musical orchestra. SUE DALGARN, MONTY PYTHON FAN: I wasn't really sure. I wasn't really sure how many like minded people, but obviously there's loads.
VAN MARSH: Loads who have seen "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," where comedians playing King Arthur and his knights are supposed to be on horse back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're using coconuts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?
TERRY JONES, "MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL": We assumed we'd have horses. Then we realized e couldn't afford them, so -- coconuts.
VAN MARSH: Those coconut sounds, put them together, and have an orchestra.
(on camera): The world record for a coconut orchestra -- yes, this has been done before, was set in New York City last year when more than 1,700 people came together to clap shells like these.
(voice-over): It's a brilliant way to hype the musical "Spamalot." Based on Monty Python skits, it's a hit on Broadway and in London.
(MUSIC)
VAN MARSH: So it's a natural to use one of the best loved songs for the record attempt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get on with it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, get on with it.
CROWD: Get on with it!
VAN MARSH: After a little more instruction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The clapping motion, bring them together. And apart.
VAN MARSH: They got on with it.
Their attempt easily validated by the "Guinness Book of World Records."
UNIDENTFIED MALE: At least 4,382!
VAN MARSH: In the end, smashing that record with at least twice as many people, feeling glad they took part.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fantastic. Brilliant. I'm on a buzz.
VAN MARSH: Buzz off an orchestral movement that some might say is just nuts.
Alphonso Van Marsh, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Still lots of Python fans out there. All right, to another story we're covering. Nicaraguan prosecutors are calling it a crime of passion.
CLANCY: Coming up, the murder victim's American ex-boyfriend says they've got the wrong man. We're going to take you to a peaceful seaside town for the story of a violent murder. Stay with CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: A beautiful woman murdered, her ex-boyfriend convicted and sent to prison.
CHURCH: To authorities it seemed like an open and shut case, but questions linger in one town on the Nicaraguan coast.
CLANCY: Rick Sanchez takes us there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was like a lynch mob. Angry Nicaraguans had been waiting for this moment. And the 27-year-old Eric Volz was at the white hot center.
How he got here, to this awful place is a story of whom do you believe?
Great waves attract surfers to this sleepy seaside town of San Juan del Sur, and that's what originally drew Volz here, two years ago. But he was also starting a magazine, "El Puente," "The Bridge," a serious cultural magazine intended to improve relations between Nicaraguans and Americans.
Then last November, Doris Jimenez, just 25 years old, was found dead. The murder apparently strangled her with his own hands in the clothing store she owned here. By U.S. standards, the police response was casual. The murder draws bystanders that actually crowd in to look, in just minutes, evidence is critically tainted.
The murder of this beautiful young woman was a sensation. Police would quickly charge four men with the crime, one was American Eric Volz. He dated Jimenez, but they had broken up. Thousands of miles away, in Tennessee, Eric's mother gets the news.
MAGGIE VOLZ, MOTHER OF ACCUSED: I got a phone call from a man that I had no idea who it was. So, I walked off to the side, and he told me that Eric had been arrested for Doris' murder.
SANCHEZ: For Volz's mother, the first step in what she considers the railroading on her son. His alibi rests entirely on this story that he was two hours away from the victim at the time of the murder. And he provided testimony from witnesses who back him up. (on camera): Keep in mind, the court record indicates that the murder took place Tuesday at 11:45 a.m., just 15 minutes before noon. Yet, there are 10 different people who have signed affidavits saying they saw Eric here between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 in the afternoon, right here, in his office.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were in the same house, room, we had lunch.
SANCHEZ (voice-over): The caretaker on the property says that he, too, saw Eric that morning, and afternoon.
(on camera): You can swear that he was here, Tuesday at noon? He was there in his office, you say, you saw him, he was wearing shorts? He was wearing shorts. At noon. (SPANISH)
(voice-over): Ten witnesses for him, no authentic forensic evidence against him. And, yet, Volz had a sense of foreboding.
ERIC VOLZ, EP PUBLISHER: I'm worried this is bigger than anybody understands.
SANCHEZ: His premonition proved correct.
(on camera): With Eric Volz on trial, his life hanging in the balance in the courtroom, the mob here on the street was getting even more tense. And a message that they seem to be sending to the judge was clear. We want the gringo convicted.
(voice-over): Outside, the chanting. Viva Nicaragua and death to the gringo. Inside the courthouse, Volz's lawyers present witnesses to prove that he was in his Managua office, two hours away, at the time of the murder. Ten of them.
His defense provides cell phone records, even this time stamped instant message conversation Eric says he had with a colleague in Atlanta. That's Volz's screen name. EPMagazineEric He's swapping messages from about 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 in the afternoon. Covering the time just before noon, when Jimenez was killed.
His lawyer is convinced the alibis will win Eric his freedom.
RAMON ROJAS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY (through translator): The evidence presented before the district judge in Rivas all coincide in showing his lack of participation and his innocence.
SANCHEZ: Outside, the mob is growing more agitated. Police fire rubber bullets to hold them back. Leading the mob, Jimenez's mother, Mercedes. Like prosecutors, she believes Eric Volz was obsessed with her daughter, and jealous that she was dating others.
(on camera): Tell me what evidence you think there is. So he had a big scratch on the back of his shoulder. Fingernails?
MERCEDES JIMENEZ, VICTIM'S MOTHER: Si. SANCHEZ (voice-over): Volz did have marks on his shoulder at the time of his arrest. This photograph was taken the day after Jimenez's funeral. Volz told police the marks came from carrying her coffin. And, in fact, they do correspond to the correct shoulder.
But the prosecutor tells me, she's certain the marks could only have come from fingernails. She also tells me Eric had blood under his fingernails. When they arrested him two days after the murder. But she admits they never proved it.
What about witnesses, I ask? Surely, somebody in the busy town would have seen Eric if he was there.
(on camera): How it is possible that nobody saw? Her answer? No. Nobody saw him. Nobody, that is, except this man.
He is Nelson Dangla, who testified he saw Eric just after the time police believe Doris was murdered. But Dangla is also tainted. Why? Because he was originally also arrested for Jimenez's murder. And in exchange for testifying against the American, he receives full immunity. And that is why Eric is so worried, as he sits outside the courtroom, waiting for the verdict.
E. VOLZ: I've been sitting in this room for almost 45 minutes alone, there's a thin wall right here, and that's where the trial is, and there's like, four police at my door with machine guns. I'm just about to walk in the courtroom.
SANCHEZ: No one in Eric's family is prepared for what comes next. This is Volz's mother, telling his father the outcome.
M. VOLZ: It's a guilty verdict.
SANCHEZ: Eric was found guilty of murdering Doris Jimenez. He was also found guilty of raping her, even though police never concluded that she had been raped. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison, and if that seems strange, after what you've heard, listen to this.
Another man was also convicted of the same crime, by the same prosecutor, and the same judge, even though the prosecution never connected him with Eric Volz. CNN arranged to interview Volz in prison. In fact, we got a Nicaraguan court order allowing us access to him. But when we arrived, we weren't allowed to see him.
(on camera): We have a signed document that was given to us by the presiding judge in this case which is supposed to give us permission to go in and interview Eric Volz, but director of the prison is saying that he's not going to let us in.
We've been here now for the better part of five hours and saying the document is not good enough and we're not going to be allowed to talk to Mr. Volz.
(voice-over): We don't know why. Perhaps Nicaraguan authorities decided they don't want this story told worldwide. We'll never know. And until his appeal, his parents can only see him in prison.
M. VOLZ: Every meal, I think of him, and what he's not seating. Every ice cube, every cold glass of anything, he doesn't have.
SANCHEZ: The U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua is following the case. So, for now, Eric Volz is in prison for 30 years. And despite a formal trial, no one seems certain justice was served. Rick Sanchez, CNN, Managua, Nicaragua.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CLANCY: Fascinating case.
CHURCH: Absolutely.
CLANCY: And we will follow that. That's all for now here on YOUR WORLD TODAY. I'm Jim Clancy.
CHURCH: And I'm Rosemary Church. Stay with us.
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