Tonight on 360, Heather Suspect and New York CEO, Killer, were caught at what police found telling him to the crime. Also, while we're learning about his seemingly straight-hour background and why he was for all intents and purposes, invisible to authorities until his capture. Plus, a report from Inside Surrey and what's being found after the fall of his brutal dictator and the hideous chambers of his most notorious prison. Good evening, thanks for joining us.
We left you Friday with the suspect in the New York sidewalk assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, still at large. We begin tonight with him in custody in just a short time ago entering a courthouse in rural Pennsylvania for a preliminary arraignment. His name is Luigi Mangione. He's been charged with five criminal counts, and not yet with murder.
He was arrested in McDonald's in Altoona about a two-hours drive from Pittsburgh and five hours or so by car from Midtown Manhattan where the killing took place. According to the criminal complaint, Altoona police responded to a worker's tip, found him sitting with a laptop and wearing a blue medical mask. An officer asked him to pull that mask down and recognize him as the suspect. When asked if he'd been to New York recently, police say that the man said quote, well, the man became quiet and started to shake in the words of the police.
Announcing the arrest earlier today, New York police officials laid out some of the evidence they have, speaking both to the means and motivation to kill. Upon further investigation, officers recovered a firearm on his person as well as a suppressor, both consistent with the weapon used in the murder. They also recovered clothing, including a mask, consistent with those worn by our wanted individual. Additionally, officers recovered a handwritten document that speaks to both his motivation and mindset.
Well, separately, but also to the question of a possible grudge against the health insurance industry, a social media profile, which appears to be his, shows a profile photo of what looks like an x-ray image of a spine with hardware from an operation. Now, you'll remember police recovered three pieces of ammunition from the crime scene with the words denied, defend, and depose written on them. Words often used to criticize health insurance practices. Police also say they recovered this phony New Jersey ID, matching one the suspect used to check into New York hostile before the killing.
As for the real person, Luigi Manjione, New York City Chief of Detectives, says he simply did not exist as a possible suspect. What's his name on your radio? Is he someone who you had the looking into before his arrest? No, he did not have his name prior to today.
In fact, prior to today, he was someone without a criminal record, except for trespassing citation in Hawaii. He attended a prestigious private school in Baltimore where he was the valedictorian. So, to the class of 2016, a kind of class that only comes around once every 50 years. It's been an incredible journey, and I simply can't imagine the last few years with any other group of guys.
After that, he got his undergraduate graduate degrees at the University of Pennsylvania. According to the Daily Pennsylvania, and he was a member of the Engineering Computer Science Honor Society at a cap of new. So, there's a lot we know, a lot yet to learn. See, there's a lot we had to learn.
See, there's a lot in New York with the suspect, what he brought. See, there's Brian Todd is in Holliday'sburg, Pennsylvania. Brian, let's start off with you. You're outside the courthouse where the suspect was taken earlier.
That's right, Anderson. This is where Luigi Manjione was brought after he was processed in question at the Altoona Police headquarters, not far from here. This location is only about eight miles up the road from the McDonald's where he was taken into custody this morning. It's like we're getting new information about his arrest and new details about the suspect's background.
All these endeavors take a huge amount of courage. Graduation video suggests Luigi Manjione was valedictorian at this prestigious all-boys private school in 2016. His family owns a nursing home chain in Maryland, and his cousin is a state legislator. Authorities say the note found in his possession railed against the healthcare industry.
We don't think that there's any specific threats to other people mentioned in that document, but it does seem that he has some ill-will toward corporate America. The note said, quote, these parasites had it coming, and I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done according to a police official who has seen the document. The note says he acted alone and that he was self-funded, and it asked why we have the most expensive healthcare in the world and yet are ranked 42nd in life expectancy. Oftentimes when suspects leave these types of documents, it's really to try to control the public perception of what their act was.
Authorities are also investigating other writings of his online. The profile photo on an ex-account that appears to belong to Manjione features what looks like an x-ray image of a spine with hardware from a surgery, and a profile on Goodreads, also appearing to belong to Manjione, lists a number of books about coping with chronic back pain. That profile also reviews the anti-technology manifesto of the Unabomber. He was a violent individual, rightfully imprisoned, who maimed innocent people, the post says, but it also calls him an extreme political revolutionary and notes how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.
Is it someone that was individually aggrieved, someone whose family member has suffered as a result of a decision that this company made? Or is it a broader sort of activist person that is rebelling against capitalism? On the one hand, analysts say the crime was carefully planned. He definitely did his operational planning, pre-tax surveillance, knew the location of this meeting and knew where he was going to be.
But on the other hand, there are a number of mistakes that this shooter made to include leaving forensic evidence behind the D&A, all the videos taking off his mask. And what exactly has this suspect been charged with? Right, Anderson, according to the criminal complaint that was just filed at this courthouse, he's got five counts against him, two felonies and three misdemeanors, one felony count of forgery, one felony count of carrying a firearm without a license, one misdemeanor count of tampering with records or identification, one misdemeanor count of possessing instruments of a crime and one misdemeanor count of false identification to law enforcement authorities. You'll notice, of course, that murder charge regarding the death of Brian Thompson, not leveled against him at this court.
That could, of course, come later in New York City. Yeah, right, Todd, thanks very much, I'm gonna get seen as from a pro-capac in New York. So what's the process, now, should I come from getting this guy from Pennsylvania to New York, from face charges here? Well, one of the first things that the NYPD needs to do is actually charge him with the murder.
And to do that, they need some more direct evidence, perhaps Anderson, like the gun. Once they get the gun back to New York, they could send it up to their lab and queens. And they're the ballistics units, they can test fire the weapon compared to the shell casings that they get from that test fire, to what they found at the scene. And that will give them direct evidence of his alleged involvement in the murder.
So it's more evidence, more direct and more for legal reasons that they need some more information before they go ahead and level the charges against it for the murder. Once that is done, he will have a hearing there in Pennsylvania before a judge, and he can either wave extradition or he could fight extradition. If he fights extradition, the district attorney there said in the press conference, I think he said something like 30 days or so. If he doesn't fight extradition, then it's a much quicker process.
And then the NYPD would simply be able to take him, bring him here, they'd have to book him here, and then he would appear him in a criminal court. So we could be a month away, it all depends on when they file the charges. And what he decides in terms of whether he's going to fight the extradition ever soon. All right, I'm going to approach you personally very much.
I want to go now to where I've seen its chief law enforcement intelligence analyst, John Miller, also Brianna Fox, Professor of Criminology at the University of South Florida, and former FBI Special Agent, also retired New York, please Captain John Monahan. John Miller, what are your sources to tell you tonight about the suspect and the investigation? Well, the picture that is emerging is becoming a richer one. You know, this is a young man who came from a life of privilege and wealth from a family that operated businesses that were successful, who went to UPenn and achieved a degree and then a master's degree and engineering who lived for a time with friends in Hawaii.
In other words, Anderson, you know, for your experience in mind in these cases, he's not your average active shooter or serial killer or political operative, he's a little bit different. But he did seem to have this obsession about a healthcare industry that was getting too large, too powerful and too greedy, which led him to strike out. Let me see up the question though. He murders the head of the largest healthcare company in the United States allegedly, and then flees to Pennsylvania with plenty of cash, a weapon, still ammunition.
What was next and why was he carrying this note? Yeah, and there's note, I mean, people calling it a manifesto, I don't want to sort of make it grander than it was, his writing that he was found with reads, in part, these parasites had it coming. He also said, I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done. Obviously all that is evidence that we'll be using to building the case against it.
He sees himself, you know, in the pitch and tone of this two page document, which apparently has contained in some kind of notebook, as stepping up, as being the one to avenge this growing problem and refers to apparently United healthcare, he refers to it only by the name United, talking about that it's gotten too big and too greedy. Professor Fox, why do you think he kept so much in cremating evidence with him, including the fake ID he used the hospital and the pistol and the silencer? That is a great question. I was wondering the same thing.
Why would you keep the gun? Why would you keep these writings? They certainly implicate him considerably, but I think it's not necessarily that he's thinking about, you know, why he's keeping it. I think he's in the end of the day thinking he's still going to be able to pull something off to get away with this.
I expect that he's going to have a pretty compelling case that he's going to try to raise in front of a jury, essentially like jury nullification, trying to get people to side with him and essentially see him in some way as a victim or his family or saying basically like, sympathize with me and turning it around. That being said, I also think this whole thing, he was trying to get away, but he was also trying to make as much noise along the way as possible, getting as much media attention, trying to call more attention to his messaging and essentially expecting to get caught, but still trying to get as much bang for his buck out of it while he could. Chief Manana, you've seen a lot of different kind of crime criminals and shootings in New York. What do you make of this?
I mean, now given the suspect and how he was apprehended, what stands out to you? What stands out to me is the fact that earlier they were asked that the Pennsylvania leadership was asked, is he cooperating? And he said initially that he was, but then he stopped and then we charged him. And it's not as the exact sequence of events that has to occur if you want to get information from this prisoner.
The reason New York is not charging him, yes, there's a lot of legal needs that has to happen, but our detectives don't want to charge him yet because once you charge him, the absolute right to cancel attaches. Now we can't question him. It's like he's right to cancel right now is qualified. We read him a random and we ask him, would you wave?
He can wave because the right is qualified at that time. Once we charge him, the right is absolute. We can all of them talk to him even if he wants to. This is why this is the way in charging.
We want to talk to this guy. You heard Pennsylvania, they didn't charge him. This was when the news first broke. He was not charged.
And as that gun, I don't know the list of experts, but I don't, it doesn't look like something that was created by a 3D printer. That kid went, you know, there's only three places greyhound goes to out of the George Washington Bridge boss terminal, Philly Bosses DC. He went to Philly. Then he went to Pittsburgh.
Now, Commissioner Miller asked him a very good question. What was next? He started Pittsburgh as well, best of all, to her. He's heading back to New York as he approaches out to Pennsylvania.
I wonder how much ammunition was in that backpack. Last thing I want to say is this, you can't help us while when you think a kid six months out of the academy makes this collar. Let's think about what did not happen in that McDonald's. He didn't have a chance to draw that weapon to commit suicide, which he made a promise to do.
He never changed to draw that weapon to fight it out with the cops. And he was still there. What kind of restaurant is that? Fast food restaurant?
They were there very quickly. How long has the people sitting with the bottles? It's 10 minutes. Pops.
They got there right away. Their presence was job well done. John Miller, let's talk about that gun. I mean, you know, there was initially, there was a reporting that maybe it was this is the idea that maybe it's not a three-year-old.
What do you make of the fact that he's still in a gun? Because I remember you and I talking that first night of would he keep the gun with him? Is the gun going to be in the backpack? You know, a lot of suspects wouldn't want to be caught with a gun on them tying them to a shooting?
It's so interesting because, you know, in New York, he dumps the bicycle. He dumps the other backpack that he wears during the murder. You find Tommy Hilfiger jacket and monopoly money in that backpack. But he keeps the gun.
And that does make the question, as Captain Monaghan also points out, which is, was he going to do another assassination? Is that the reason he has this note on him, which explains the mindset behind it? A lot of people suggested because of the way this unfolded that he wanted to get caught. I would suggest he didn't want to get caught, but he was prepared to get caught with this manifesto in place in case he was killed in the process of getting caught.
As it was when the police came in there, he was buried in his laptop at a table in the back of the McDonald's. He didn't have access to the gun on his person. He would have had to reach in the backpack. They would have reacted more quickly.
So I think he just let this unfold to see if he could talk his way through it and he couldn't. We got to take a break when we come back more on the next steps in the investigation and the prosecution of the suspect will still has yet to be charged with killing itself, also more on the so-called ghost gun that police recovered. If it is, in fact, a 3D print again. What are they?
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We're at WeMo following the rules of the road. Listen to CNN's terms of service wherever you get your podcasts. So if I got news for your ears, the podcast, I am your host, Michael Ian Black. His latest thing you see this yesterday was he finds the peace talks boring.
Not my favorite guy, but I got to be honest with you. I know exactly what he's talking about. He's not negotiating. He's not in the rules.
But how do you think he receives the information? Sir, because they all sound sure. Sir, would you like to hear the latest of it? They should make like a comic strip out of it.
Have I got news for your ears? Check us out on Apple, Amazon Music, wherever you get to podcasts. Even though you can watch the podcast on Spotify. Private Funeral was held today for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who as you know was killed execution style last week in Manhattan.
Tonight, one of the police officers who apprehended the suspect and who kept him on hand praised a moment ago. His name is Tyler Fry. He described the moment. He's wearing a blue-necked mask.
As soon as we pulled that down, we asked the report down. Me and my partner and I recognized him immediately. Just for what we saw in the media with photos, videos, we just didn't even think about it. We knew that was our guy.
Back now with our panel. John Miller, what are the questions you are most curious to find out about motivation in this? Well, he's given us a lot about motivation. Between the things he wrote on the bullet about insurance company habits of denied delay, deposed to the monopoly money as kind of the prop he left behind in the backpack in Central Park, which can go to its greed and cash to the note that was found with him, allegedly when he was arrested, which talks about the health care industry that's getting too big, too profitable, growing too fast, and at the expense of its consumers, some at their most vulnerable times.
So, as far as the more... Does that make sense, though, too? I mean, there's a lot of people who may feel that way, who don't go out and do this. This guy went to good schools, graduated, allegedly at education, came from, it seems like a wealthy family.
What actually motivates a person like that to take this step? Well, I think that you will see, if you look at his prior writings online, where he talks about the work of the Unabomber, right? Here's an individual who struck out at corporate leaders that were really very hard to connect with each other as victims when he wrote his manifesto, which didn't make sense to a lot of people. It was all about corporate greed and the environment and the future of the Earth.
This individual, you could infer from this note, sees himself as someone who's stepping up and doing what needs to be done that others won't do. And apparently has cloaked himself in this idea that his smarts, his education, is not enough, that protest is ineffective, and that by moving to violence, he is taking the first step for many. There's a lot of ego involved in there and a lot of self-importance that he's attaching, and that is not uncommon. I think our next panel member will draw that out in these individuals.
Professor Fox, do you think is there a mental health issue with this person? As more becomes apparent, there was some indication online that maybe his family had been looked, some friends reached out. I think there was ex-accounts saying that his family had been looking for him for a while. Does it make sense to you?
I think what John Miller said really gets to the core of this, which is I think he does have this almost missile-like complex, where he's thinking he's the only one who can fight to save the rest of us. Rather than pursuing it through, obviously, his intellect, which is considerable, or protests or nonviolent means, he some reason decided that this was the best way to do it. I do think that that's going to eventually translate into his case strategy and philosophy. I think that he's going to probably pursue during nullification, essentially that he's going to find people or want people to be sympathetic with his cause and believe in him versus this poor victim.
Captain Monhan, it certainly seems like the photos at the NYPD were able to release, making the subsets image known to the public were critical in all of this. There was the key. It was absolutely key. I mean, the diner in McDonald's and the worker in McDonald's, they're not calling anybody without the photo that the NYPD released from that hostel.
I mean, that was the key to the whole thing. Not saying we got lucky there, but like Chief Joe Kennedy said, Chief Detective's Day, he was on the radar. This was very good police work, and it's the way the system works. They put that photo out there, you guys broadcast it, whatever was, whatever, they saw it, and these two people, McDonald's, made the call.
I mean, that's fantastic, you know? Notice that the DA from Manhattan is going out to Altoona with our guys. He's an interesting piece of insight based on what we do with the NYPD and the way we investigate crimes and handle Kyle as a rest. There are some places in Europe when you just, you develop your probable cause.
You come to your sergeant, what else? I think this is my guy, all right, go get him. Then you bring him in, you put him in the system, and then you sit down with your prosecutor. Prosecutor will confirm your probable cause and I'm not going to court.
Some places in Europe, I own the particular in other places as well. You've got to, when you get your probable cause, you got to receive your prosecutor first. Then they want the right to go out and make your rest. In the NYPD, there's only one time that we go to the prosecutor to confirm probable cause before making a rest and it's on a homicide count.
So that DA has been involved with all detectives, step by step, all the way through. David prepares to bring his thing to court from the very beginning. John, it's well done. John, in court tonight, the suspect pushed back against claims that the $1,000 cash found in his bag, indicating he was trying to evade authorities and that the Faraday bag that he had on them, which block sales signals showed any evidence of criminal sophistication.
I wonder which made of that one in his comments in the courtroom. Without trying the sound flip about it, you have an individual who's found with a ghost gun semi-automatic with a Glock magazine with six rounds in it, a manifesto about the healthcare industry and greed after the head of that particular largest company is found dead in Manhattan. And the two things he seeks to deny is that that wasn't his money and that the Faraday bag was just to keep things dry, that's odd. There's other, I mean, yeah, what else is going to say about the gun, I guess?
I mean, I always start off with, that's not my gun, those aren't my bullets, that's not my manifesto. Leaving that out and saying that's not my Faraday bag seems like, you know, when he identified himself to the police with the fake license, they ran the license and he came back fake, the police officer said, why did you lie to me? And his response was, clearly I shouldn't have done that. It is what it is.
John Miller, Peter Fox, John Monahan, I appreciate it. Thank you. Coming up more on the weapon, which as we've discussed, police officials have called a ghost gun untraceable, possibly made with 3D printed materials more than that. We've been reporting that the man being held in custody of the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was in possession of a so-called ghost gun when he was searched by local McDonald's, a local police in McDonald's this morning.
Now, according to the criminal complaint, the pistol and the company Black Silence were both 3D printed. The weapon is capable of firing 9 millimeter rounds like the ones used in a shooting. Ghost guns are untraceable, self-assembled firearms often put together from parts sold online, no background check required. I'm going to get perspective now from Kenneth Corey, former chief of department and chief of training for the New York Police Department.
He is well as a scene and law enforcement analyst and also joining us as former Secret Service agent Jonathan Wackro. Chief Corey, how easy is it for someone to get their hands on parts to assemble a ghost gun? Yeah, you know, these exploded in popularity just a couple of years ago, right? Ghost gun is the flint iron for what the ATF calls a privately made firearm.
And, you know, you hit it and you said, right, you select all the parts, you order them online, maybe from different vendors, they'll get delivered to you, and you just kind of put it together yourself. You know, with the firearm in question where you mentioned 3D printing, you know, the parts will be 3D printed there, the lower receiver where the grip is, the trigger guard. Everything else is going to be made out of steel. Jonathan, the criminal complaint said that the gun and the silenced were both 3D printed Do you think that's true?
What does it tell you? Well, I mean, it can't be true. I mean, I don't see why the criminal complaint would not have the accuracy of the weapon in it. But, you know, Anderson, what I want to talk about is, you know, the ghost gun is actually the perfect complement to what law enforcement refers to as the pathway to violence.
And we think about that pathway to violence. It's, you know, we're almost looking at a pure model here. We're talking about some of the way it had an initial grievance. They, you know, right, I believe we're going to find some violent ideations that are coming out of this individual, a lot of research and preparation, all which went in prior to the attack.
So if you think about ghost guns, they're really an attractive option, you know, for various suspects in this suspect in particular, just as we were talking about, that untraceability is a key factor of it. The easy to obtain factor of it, you know, buying it online. Again, if we think about all the action steps that this suspect took in advance of the attack, it was very well thought out. Now, some of the execution was sloppy, but really, you know, purchasing this weapon, you know, potentially online or having it made himself, you know, via 3D printing, again, goes to that level of preparation.
And then really with ghost guns, it's that rapid assembly. You need to have very little skill. You don't need to be an armorer to put these weapons together to make them a functioning firearm. All of this speaks further to the premeditation that this suspect had to be able to cause harm against this executive.
Chief Corey, does it make sense? I mean, given now you've seen the weapon that he was found with, you know, in the video, there's the, we froze it on that moment right before the shooting, but then there's video of him, what looks like maybe a malfunction, or there was some thought when it was the veterinary gun, that that's the kind of gun that you actually would actually have to, for each bullet, put it into the chamber. Does it make sense to you why the gun may have malfunctioned, or he was there kind of handling the gun the way that he was with this weapon? No, I think what happens here is that the addition of the suppressor on the pistol reduces the velocity so much.
There's also a chance that he used some sonic ammunition, right, to try to be a little more quiet. So this slide isn't going to function as intended. It's not going to cycle all the way back and fully chamber a new round. And I think that's what accounts for those three live rounds that are found at the scene, in addition to the three spent shells.
He fires around, he jacks the shell, but lacks the force to fully seat the next round in the chamber. And so he has to rack the slide manually when he does that every time he kicks out a live round and chambers up a new one. That would happen either with the ghost gun or with a store bought, you know, you know, regular manufactured firearm. If you didn't modify the spring to allow for the suppressor.
Jonathan, were you surprised the suspect still had the gun which was loaded on him when he was apprehended? Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the items of evidentiary value that he had on his person are a little bit shocking. I mean, typically what you see when someone commits such a violent crime and then does have the ability to escape during that escape route, they are trying to shed those items of evidentiary value. So it doesn't trace back to him.
I mean, you think about the level of thought that went into the planning of this attack. You know, he put a lot of thought into getting away how you get away at that escape route, maintaining that is really interesting to me. You know, these could be trophies that he wanted to have in the event that he was caught. The manifesto that that two page letter explaining, you know, really sort of the rationale, his intent for doing this helps him control that narrative, maintaining the weapon and the silencer.
You know, again, either leads to was there more to come or was this something that he was holding on to as as remembrance of this tragic act? I mean, time will tell. Hopefully he is talking to police. Hopefully we'll be able to understand a little bit more about, you know, what was he intending to do next, you know, if he wasn't caught by the officers in Pennsylvania.
Yeah, Jonathan Wackrok and Corey, thank you. Appreciate your time. Sinon is going to continue monitoring the story, bring out any developments as they occur. Be sure to tune in tonight for a special edition of Laura Coates Live or on her team, which is going to look at how the suspected gunman was found, examined the possible motive that's tonight at 11 p.m.
Eastern. Next tonight, we'll take inside Syria in the fall of the Assad regime. It is stunning the images we have seen today. Sinon was got incredible access to notorious military prison, where families of potentially thousands of imprisoned Syrians believe are were went there today, desperately looking for their loved ones.
We'll have more room to see. For more than 50 years, the Assad regime ruled Syria as a brutal dictatorship. Well, that came to an end over the weekend when rebel forces seized and told the capital city Damascus, toppling the regime, raising fears of the power vacuum during time to increase tensions in the Middle East. Now, there are major questions tonight about what happens next, namely who will actually lead the new Syrian government.
The Assad regime's outgoing prime minister met with rebel forces today and agreed to hand over power. A transitional prime minister has not yet been named. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says the United States will work with all groups in Syria. Though civil war has raged for more than a decade, rebels launched a renewed offensive less than two weeks ago, cutting across the northwest, capturing the capital in a matter of days.
Celebrations as well as looting broke out in the streets. For years, reporting from Syria was all but impossible. That change over the weekend is journalists including the Chief International Correspondent of the Credit Award return to document the excitement, the relief of the Syrian people. Of course, that joins me now with the latest.
So talk about what else is happening on the ground. What have you been seeing? Well, Anderson, the streets of Damascus have been very quiet today. There has been no looting like we saw on the first day.
But definitely you're seeing long lines of people. They are lining up for gas. They are lining up to take out cash. They are lining up to buy supplies to buy bread.
And there's a sense that people are a little concerned that chaos could be looming. They want to be prepared. They're hearing the right sorts of wording from the rebels, which is giving them some confidence about what the future may hold. And most importantly, Anderson, what we saw today is that people are now desperately trying to find out once and for all what's happened to their loved ones.
Many of whom disappeared during 14 years of a ghastly civil war. Take a look. The stream of families never stops. Climbing towards Syria's most notorious said Naya Prison, pushed on by reports that thousands of people imprisoned by the regime of Bashar al-Assad are still trapped alive in a section underground.
The red section of the prison they've been trying for days to reach it may soon the boot tells us. There's no oxygen because the ventilation went out and so they all may die. For the sake of Allah, help them. If someone from your family in the prison had the Mihalytic precision, Hala'yani, Nihyani.
My three brothers and my son-in-law, she says, The roads are choked with cars full of people looking for loved ones. As soon as they see our camera, they approach, holding lists of names of those who vanished inside Assad's dungeons never to assume again. Allah will have to get them out before tomorrow, Chris Man says. They don't have food, they don't have work.
Everybody's just started running, it's not clear if they have managed to get into this part of the prison. No, no, no. My God, my God, the woman prays. My God is the crowd surges towards the prison.
So it looks like they think that they have managed to get access while celebratory gunfire people have us flooding in. After the initial jubilation, an agonizing wait for confirmation from the rescue workers. Many here have been waiting for decades. Hope was something they didn't let themselves feel until now.
Rescue workers with serious white helmets break through the concrete looking for a way in. No one is certain where this red section is, where if it exists. Inside the prison, family members are searching too. You can see people everywhere just combing through all the papers and records they can find looking for names, seeing if maybe their loved ones are there.
Tens of thousands of Syrians were forcibly disappeared in Sennaya, lost in the abyss of a prison that was known as a slaughterhouse, industrial scale, arbitrary detention, and torture all to keep one man in power. They call this the white area of the prison because they say the conditions here are much better than in other areas, but you can see it's still miserable. In the center of the prison, another frantic rush. Someone thinks they have found a tunnel.
They desperately tried to get a look inside. Others look on helpless, not knowing his agony. Asad may be gone. The legacy of his cruelty remains.
Inclusion, what kind of evidence is there that this so-called red section of the prison actually exists? I mean, there must be guards who used to work there. So, Anderson, it's funny you should mention this because literally right after our report, there was a post that was put up online by a group that calls itself the Association of detainees and the missing inside Nia. They said that they are competent that actually the red section, the so-called red section, does not exist that all of the detainees who were held in Sennaya were actually released on December 8th by 11 a.m.
And the white helmets, that group of rescue workers who you saw desperately clawing through the rubble trying to find the so-called red section, have now come out and said that the search is effectively over. It has concluded. But I think what this really speaks to Anderson is the total chaos and confusion as people are trying to work out what is real, what is not, what is rumor, what is fact. I spoke to one woman who was looking for her brother, a man called Abdukalek, and she said, all we want to know is if he is alive or not.
That's all we want to know. It should be such a simple question with a simple answer, but as many are finding here right now, Anderson, it is far from that. Yeah, of course, award. Thank you.
Be careful. Joanna, by Jo Bewerk and National Security reporter for the Washington Post, author of the fascinating book Redline, The Unraveling of Syria and America is race to destroy the most dangerous arsenal in the world. Let's talk about the Syrian militia that has claimed power to mask as their leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jalani. Who are these people?
Yeah, well, Jalani we know very well because the first time his name came up was in 2012, when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as remember the leader of ISIS, sent him to Syria as his personal emissary to start a militia, to basically become ISIS's man in Syria. So that's the starting point. Later on, he breaks with Baghdadi, decides to pledge allegiance to Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader. So this is someone with a troubling background to say the least.
You've been imprisoned by the US in Iraq. Yeah, in Iraq, you've been held in prison as many of these Jalani's had. Yeah, and then interestingly what happens is the United States declares him a foreign terrorist organization and so leader of this foreign terrorist organization and put a bounty on his head. So this is the person that's the leader of the movement.
He has claimed to have reformed and we see encouraging rhetoric, certainly from his people and also some activities that make us think that perhaps they've moderated. If you look at Aleppo, it was just a few days ago, Christians are putting up Christmas decorations. So you have some sense of normalcy and tolerance, certainly not the kind of situation of ISIS was in charge. But it's really early.
And there's other armed militia groups. Do you think there will be some power struggle? Well, yeah, and this is the unknown because these guys, HTS, this is the group that took over Damascus, they're one of several groups that are involved in this, this offensive, and they only control these big cities. There are other groups that control other parts of the country.
There's a group in the south and there's rebels or Kurdish back forces in the east and Turkish supported fighters in the north and they don't necessarily get along. So I do worry that we might see a situation kind of like Libya a few years ago when you have these competing militias and almost a warlord situation. It's incredible to me as someone who followed the brutal civil war there and the uprisings that precipitated the whole thing, demonstrations that were ruthlessly crushed, how quickly this has happened. Yeah, I mean, I was just speaking to senior Middle Eastern officials literally two days before that Damascus was seized and they didn't see it coming.
People with some of the best intelligence of people inside Syria could see what was going on. No one expected to mass it. Was the regime just completely? How did the army just disappear?
The security service just disappeared? The way it was described to me was that, you know, Giuliani and his people were planning this push and they just shoved against the front lines in the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards indicating just how hollowed out the Syrian army had become. So the US now says they're working for partners on the ground to ensure chemical weapons from the regime are secured. What's the likelihood of that?
Yeah, so we know that in 2013-14, mostly chemical weapons are taken out. There's this grand UN's back mission that took out a lot of seren, the really bad stuff, the nerve agent stuff that could really kill people. So much of that is gone, but the US believes that some of it remains in the country. We don't know how much.
We don't know what kind of condition it's in. But if you put aside chemical weapons, just think about the other things that would be available to terrorists if they wanted to grab it, you know, surface to air missiles, you're shooting out a plane, all kinds of just armaments and ammunition. And all those bases are not controlled in a sense that we would think of as being secure. So all that is potentially subject for me.
And in terms of the ability the US has to actually influence events on the ground, how limited is that? It's pretty limited because the Americans are acknowledging they're not even speaking to HTS. They don't have a direct channel. They have to go through the Turks or others.
They still have a bounty on this guy. They do. And we have it. In fact, there's a big decision I think that the United States and other countries will have to make.
Do we rescind this foreign terrorist organization designation? And we don't know yet. And we can't really know until we see how these guys behave around Russia also has I mean, they've naval assets there. What do we know the status of that?
Yeah, well, these are, you know, long term military leases that the Russians negotiated with the Syrian government. Of course, that government is gone now. But Russia has in their opinion the right to have a naval base in Tartus, which is actually their only warm water naval port in the world. And they've been asking they're trying to reach out to the rebels now to say, Hey, you know, it's okay.
We have a problem here. But nobody really knows what the future of those bases are going to be. There's a big air force base there as well. There's Russian troops on the ground.
Again, a potential area for conflict. We weren't. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
We'll stay on Syria. Next one, we'll come back to the latest in the whereabouts of American journalist Austin Ties, who's been imprisoned there for more than 12 years. Both the Secretary of State and the White House today said they are working to locate freelance journalist Austin Ties. Ties was captured at a Syrian checkpoint in 2012 and has been jailed for more than 12 years versus brother Simon talking to CNN this morning.
I would like to say that, yeah, well, we know that Austin is alive and we know that Austin is in Syria. And so at this point, we are encouraging anyone who's in a position to do so, to provide him assistance and help him to return safely home to us. Now, Simon Ties went on to say that the family is uncomfortable sharing how they know that he's alive as it is, quote, too much of a dynamic situation in his words. The comments come a day after President Biden also spoke about Austin Ties.
We are mindful, we are mindful after American in Syria, including those who reside there, as well as Austin Ties, who was taking Captain more than 12 years ago. We remain committed to returning him to his family. Well, on Friday, before the regime, they're clearly following members of the Ties family expressed some frustration with the answers they got from the Biden administration. This morning, Austin Ties's sister, Megan Tolstina, that the administration is quote, extremely involved, will continue to follow the latest on Austin Ties.
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