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ICC Seeks Arrest Warrant for Hamas and Israel Leaders; Iran Says, President Ebrahim Raisi Killed in Helicopter Crash; Cross- Examination of Michael Cohen Resumes in Hush Money Trial. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired May 20, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- anti-Semitic hate crime.

[07:00:02]

So, that is the kind of language that I think we can expect to hear from the Israeli prime minister, as we expect reaction soon.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: An unprecedented anti Semitic reality. That's very strong language there.

Jeremy Diamond for us in Jerusalem, Jeremy, thank you for being here to share all of that reporting. Again we are reporting here now at CNN that the ICC is seeking arrest warrants for the leader of Hamas, Yayha Sinwar, and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

We're going to have much more continuing coverage of this coming up. I'm Kasie Hunt. CNN News Central starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are following this breaking news. The International Criminal Court moments ago announced it is seeking arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas for the October 7th terrorist attack in Israel, and also seeking arrest warrants for the political and military leadership of the state of Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Hamas' top political and military leaders, also being sought for crimes against humanity, all named just now.

CNN's Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour has this exclusive interview with a special prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, who announced it to her just moments ago, and she's joining us right now from The Hague. Christiane tell me more, tell us more about what you've learned.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, Kate, we broke this earlier on CNN some 20 minutes ago. It is an incredibly important turning point in this war since Hamas invaded parts of Israel, slaughtered so many people, took so many hostages, and in the aftermath since Israel went to war against Hamas, and has caused so many civilian casualties and what international officials say starvation and famine also imposed.

So, these form the basis of the ICC charges and they are now seeking warrants, seeking arrest warrants that will have to be approved by a panel of independent judges here. I am at the ICC based on these things that I told you. And here are the crimes. There are some eight crimes, charges alleged on both sides starting with Hamas because of the timeline, obviously, October 7th was what Hamas did Here's what they what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: We're here at the ICC. You are today announcing that you are applying for arrest warrants for top military and political leadership in the Israel-Gaza war since the October 7th events.

First and foremost, explain to me exactly what you're asking for and who you are charging.

KARIM KHAN, CHIEF PROSECUTOR, INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT: Today, Christiane, we've applied for warrants to the pretrial chamber of the International Criminal Court in relation to three individuals that are Hamas members. Sinwar, who's in charge on the ground.

AMANPOUR: That's Yahya Sinwar?

KHAN: Absolutely. Deif, who's in charge of the al-Qassam Brigade, and Haneyeh, who's one of their political bureau based in Doha.

AMANPOUR: What are the charges?

KHAN: The charges are extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention. So, these are the key crimes that are alleged to have been committed by these three individuals.

The world was shocked on the 7th of October when people were ripped from their bedrooms, from their homes, from the different kibbutzim in Israel, and people have suffered enormously. And we have a variety of evidence to support the applications that we've submitted to the judges.

AMANPOUR: You have also issued warrants against the top political and military leadership of the government of the state of Israel.

KHAN: We've applied for warrants. Of course, the judges must determine whether or not to issue them, but we've applied today, we'll apply for warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and also Minister of Defense Gallant for the crimes of causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: So, what you're hearing is the layout of the crime, so it is crimes against humanity and war crimes. And in addition, the prosecutor has said, just so that everybody understands, that he has issued this request for arrest warrants based on the reasonable belief on grounds that these are criminal offenses that can meet a conviction standard.

[07:05:00]

It's not just reasonable grounds that they could go to trial. This is higher, the standard of conviction based on the evidence that he and his teams have collected so far and that are in the public domain.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Christiane, Sara here. A couple of things, one, I wanted to ask you just about the unprecedented nature that this is, I think, the first time that a democratic government has been brought under these potential warrants and how they've gone about gathering evidence when getting into Gaza often is very difficult?

AMANPOUR: So, on the first issue, I put that to prosecutor Karim Khan, obviously. And I said, this is the first time that this has happened in a democratic situation when we're talking about the Israeli side. And he said, that is true. And if Israel were to take this up, or had taken it up, the judicial system when we first warned about this months ago, then they would have jurisdiction. If they choose to do so now, they will have jurisdiction.

So, that's clear. He said that they have not chosen to do such a thing, even though, as he said to me, and he said it publicly, that when I warned at all these international conferences, when I warned in my face-to-face meetings with Israeli officials that this is the warning, aid is not getting through, starvation is setting in, people are dying, that don't complain if then my office does something about it if you don't. So, that's on that issue.

And then on the other issue of evidence, part of it is in the public domain. Part of it is what's been reported over and again. Part of it is what's been said. And I'm talking about Israel now. Obviously, we're going to get to the Hamas thing. It's important to know that in the prosecutor's timeline, in his indictment sheet, and you'll see on the press release, they listed the crimes that they are charging Hamas with on October 7th, and we'll get to that in a second.

But since you're asking me about the unprecedented nature of a democracy being so charged, they go back to Yoav Gallant. Because don't forget, Yoav Gallant, defense minister of Israel, has also been charged, and they, among others, seek as or see as intent his statement on October the 9th. We are imposing a complete siege. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly. Netanyahu, October 13th. We will exact a price that will be remembered by them and Israel's other enemies for decades to come.

Now, that's part of it. The other part is all the physical and other testimony by U.S. officials, let's say USAID, by international aid organizations, the U.N. and all the others, by the very fact that the United States has had to build some pier on the side of Gaza, and some countries have had to drop aid in that, the aid, the demand for aid going in is not happening.

And this is the basis of the majority of the case against Israel at the moment. That this is -- no matter as he explained, Israel, of course, has the right under any statute to defend itself from attack, but has to protect civilians. And this is something the United States has been calling for from the very beginning, as well as many, many others of Israel's allies.

So, they believe that that has not been adhered to that aid has not gone in, that famine in enough bulk, that famine is there in some parts, and that there have been deaths by starvation and malnutrition- related diseases. And they've had many conversations, the prosecutor tells me, with officials inside Israel on this.

Now, on the other side regarding Hamas, the prosecutor has been to the areas inside Israel, which were attacked by Hamas, the kibbutzim, the site of the rave party, the Nova party. He has been there, he's talked to people, talked about -- and to hostage families, and he also has seen the evidence that was on all sorts of videos, all sorts of body cams that has been provided certainly in the public domain, but also by the Israeli government regarding the crimes committed by Hamas on October the 7th.

So, they have that amount of evidence that has been sufficient, they say, for this round of arrest warrants and charges, and they say that they will continue to investigate, and this may not be the end of it. So, let's just, again, sum up on the Hamas side, Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas, mostly military, Mohammed al-Masri, who's better known as Mohammed Deif, his deputy, head of the military wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam brigades, and Ismail Haniyeh, the head of political wing of Hamas, who, frankly, is involved in negotiations currently, indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel regarding the release of Israeli hostages.

[07:10:01]

And the capture of Israeli hostages, these sexual offenses and violations and rapes by Hamas also form part of these crimes against humanity that are being sought on arrest warrants for Hamas. Back to you.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Christiane, we're going to have much more on this in a little bit, including the U.S. reaction, right? I think it is worth noting that National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, an hour ago, was meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who is listed here as someone they are seeking an arrest warrant for. So, that obviously has huge international implications.

But I do want to quickly ask you about the death of the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, and what you see as the immediate implications there.

AMANPOUR: Well, put this aside, although not the war in the Middle East, but put this event aside. Let's just be totally clear, the Iranian president is and works at the behest of what they call the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and more and more of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. So, the Iranian president is not an independent actor.

This particular, therefore, not much is expected to change in terms of style of leadership and in terms of the direction of the Iranian regime. The foreign minister also was killed, along with others in that helicopter crash. They will apparently have emergency elections in some 50 days. We assume that much of Iran's focus will be internal right now as it tries to deal with this.

Let's not forget that Ebrahim Raisi, the president, is one of the most hard line leaders in recent Iranian history. He is known not just for the crackdown on the protests against the death of Mahsa Amini, and the real grassroots protests all across Iran for months by people who just wanted freedom and democracy, women who wanted to dress the way they wanted to dress. He is known for that. That's his most recent legacy.

Before that, years ago, he was part of a judicial panel that signed off on death warrants of some 5,000 so called Iranian dissidents after the Iran-Iraq war. He has been the vanguard of hard line politics following the Iranian supreme leader for decades.

It is true that the United States and Iran were trying to deescalate tensions right now, certainly try to prevent a wider war, given what's going on between Israel and Hamas and the surrounding nations. The IAEA, the U.N. nuclear agency, said last week that there was some indications that Iran may be going back into a more strict observation of their nuclear program, which has escalated since Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal. So, all of that is going on.

And then the last thing Raisi did really, he was at the helm when there was the tit-for-tat military open conflict between Israel and Hamas last -- sorry, Israel and Iran last month.

BOLDUAN: Christiane, thank you so much. We're going to have much more of Christiane's exclusive interview with the special prosecutor of the ICC on this breaking news. The ICC bringing charges seeking arrest warrants against the political and military leadership of Hamas, as well as the leadership of the state of Israel.

And more on the breaking news, the president of Iran killed in a helicopter crash. Much more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

BERMAN: All right. The breaking news this morning. CNN was first to report Christiane Amanpour on the ground that the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as another Israeli leader, and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, and a few other Hamas leaders, and this is on charges stemming from obviously the invasion into Israel and then the Israeli response.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is live in Jerusalem. Our White House Correspondent Arlette Saenz is at the White House. There are obviously major international implications here.

Jeremy, first to you, has Israel responded yet?

DIAMOND: No response yet. We have reached out, of course, to the Israeli prime minister's office, the defense minister, both of the individuals named in this seeking of arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court, as well as to Hamas.

We did, however, late last month, get a taste of what the Israeli prime minister's reaction would be to arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court, as he sought to kind of preempt this step that had been floating around as a possibility. And the Israeli prime minister in late April said that if the ICC sought arrest warrants against Israel's political or military leaders, he said that it would be a, quote, scandal on a historic scale. He said it would be an indelible stain on all of humanity and a, quote, unprecedented, anti-Semitic hate crime.

And we should note that the Israeli Prime Minister and other officials in the Israeli government have, of course, repeatedly rebuffed the notion that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. But the report here by the prosecutor, Karim Khan, in seeking these arrest warrants, lays out a series of alleged crimes that he is charging or he is seeking the Israeli prime minister and the defense minister with, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, willful killing, contrary to an article of international law, other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity.

[07:20:18]

And then, of course, there are the Hamas leaders who are also being -- that Karim Khan is also seeking to charge, Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas' political leader who is based in Qatar, as well as Mohammed Deif, Hamas' military commander. And on that front, Karim Khan is seeking to charge them with extermination as a crime against humanity, rape, and other acts of sexual violence, and, of course, the taking of hostages and the treatment of the hostages is also critical to the charges that Karim Khan is seeking here.

So, there's no doubt that these are immense steps being taken by the International Criminal Court and certainly ones that will have enormous reverberations inside of Israel, inside of Gaza and, of course, across the world, particularly on the notion of the Israeli officials here.

The question is how will this impact their ability to travel, for example? We have seen with Vladimir Putin, for example, when he was charged last year by the International Criminal Court, it didn't all together restrict his travel, but it did pose some problems to countries that are parties to the Rome statute, which established the International Criminal Court. There was some indication that he canceled a trip to South Africa, for example, for that very reason.

So, it will be interesting to see how that impacts the Israeli prime minister's ability to travel in the future.

SIDENR: Jeremy Diamond, thank you so much. I want to go now to Arlette Saenz. She's at the White House. This is coming at an interesting moment. It's 48 hours after the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, was meeting with Netanyahu, telling him that he needed to go forward with a political strategy in the war with Hamas, not just warfare. What are you hearing from the White House now that this has come out from the ICC?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, we've reached out to the White House. We've reached out to the State Department and still are awaiting reaction, but we likely will at some point receive a very strong response from the U.S. Top U.S. officials here at the White House and State Department have repeatedly expressed their opposition to this ICC investigation. They've done so from the podium with Karine Jean-Pierre and over at the State Department with Matt Miller, saying that the U.S. does not believe that the ICC has jurisdiction. So, we will see how exactly the U.S. decides to respond as the ICC is moving forward with targeting for the very first time a top ally of the United States.

Now, this does come as you note, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was in Israel yesterday and today, meeting with Netanyahu and also just hours ago sitting down to meet with Gallant. One of the main topics of their conversation was the potential operation into Rafah at a time when the U.S. has repeatedly been trying to warn Israel against going into Rafah in a major way without a plan in place to secure the safety and evacuation of the civilians on the ground there.

Now, President Biden currently is up at his home in Wilmington, Delaware. He will be traveling back to the White House this afternoon. And we anticipate hearing from him for the very first time when he speaks at a Jewish American Heritage celebration here at the White House, which will also be attended by the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff.

But all of this comes as the U.S. has repeatedly been saying that they are opposed to this ICC investigation, but while it has very wide ranging global implications, this also could have additional political ramifications for President Biden. There is still a lot of angst, especially among young voters of the U.S.'s continued support for Israel as it's waged its campaign. So, this is something that could also factor into the politics of this moment as we are still awaiting the U.S. response to this decision from the ICC.

BOLDUAN: Arlette, thank you. We've got much more to come from the White House. We've heard Jeremy Diamond as well in Jerusalem for us. Thank you guys both. We're going to be following this very closely, many more details to come on all of this.

We're also watching this today, a very big day back in a New York City courtroom, Michael Cohen going to be back on the stand very soon, facing more cross-examination and then how much cleanup do prosecutors have planned.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

SIDNER: Today, Donald Trump returning to court as his criminal hush money trial resumed with his former fixer, Michael Cohen, back on the stand. One of the big questions today, can prosecutors overcome the hit to Cohen's credibility during cross-examination? During that cross last week, the defense used Cohen's own text messages against him, hoping to point to inconsistencies for the jury in his story.

Adding to the drama this week, still unclear what the defense case looks like if Donald Trump will take the stand in his own defense.

CNN's Brynn Gingras is joining us now. Brynn, you know, Cohen's cross- examination resumes this morning, so more of a grilling. What can we expect throughout the day?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Sara, look, five weeks of this trial so far, and we are nearing the end of it, if you can believe that. Of course, jurors were left to sit with the weekend, that crucial moment in the cross-examination that happened last Thursday, where defense attorney Todd Blanche essentially accused Michael Cohen of lying about that crucial conversation that he says he had with Donald Trump regarding those hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.

What we can expect is when Cohen goes back to the stand today, about an hour, an hour and a half or so, we're understanding more of cross- examination. We'll see if that's Todd Blanche sort of hammers home more of that point. And then we expect the prosecution, of course, to redirect.

Now, the thinking is at some point today, the prosecution is going to rest its case.

[07:30:04]

And then, of course, it's the defense's turn to bring its case. That part is still unclear, as you just --