09/03/2016 Newsnight

Extraordinary defiance in a Russian court.

We bring you the story of that Ukrainian pilot,

why she's on trial in Russia, and what it says about

the unfinished conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Also tonight - Inside Mexico's ghastly kidnap industry.

Remember how we used to argue about parents,

Supposing for one reason or another, she prefers not

to discuss it with you, but to discuss it with a doctor?

And she's underage, and she's in great danger?

Would you expect him to consult you about it?

Well, something big has happened there.

We will get a lesson on the music of Sir George Martin

and just how big a difference he made to the Beatles.

With so much going on in the world, you might be forgiven

It is not over, but it is less intense than it was.

Rather than the continual fighting of 2014, it has settled

into a stalemate of sporadic skirmishes.

Ukraine functions as an almost complete country,

but a section in the east has hived itself off and is controlled

Crimea has been formally annexed by Russia.

Now right now the animosity between the two countries,

is playing out through one particular case,

a young Ukrainian pilot, Nadia Savchencko.

Captured in 2014 by separatist forces, she now finds herself

on trial in a small Russian town, for allegedly killing

The case was one already picked up by European and American

politicians, but it took a dramatic turn in court today.

Gabriel Gatehouse has the whole story.

This case contains flash photography.

This is a story about a forgotten war, a war which has been pushed out

of the headlines by other seemingly more pressing crises.

But it hasn't gone away, and now, all the festering tensions of this

frozen conflict have been focused on one woman.

Through the bars of her cage in a Russian courtroom,

Nadia Savchenko has become a rallying point

for Ukrainians who accuse Russia of invading their countries.

Today, the 34-year-old Ukrainian Air Force pilot

on the system that will soon pronounce its verdict on her.

On the 17th of June 2014, two Russian journalists

were killed when they came under mortar fire

during fighting between the Ukrainian military

Savchenko was captured by the separatists.

The case hinges on what time it took place.

She is accused of being a spotter on the ground, of directing

the mortar fire that killed the journalists.

Nadia Savchenko is Ukraine's most prominent female officer.

Here she is in a promotional film produced by

She says the separatists who captured her, handed her over

to Russian special forces, who then took her across the border.

The purpose of the operation, her lawyers say, was to portray

Moscow says Savchenko crossed into Russia

The government has reacted angrily to calls

for her release from senior US and EU officials.

In Kiev this afternoon, they gathered to protest

Here, Nadia Savchenko has become a national symbol of defiance.

Outside the courthouse in Russia, Savchenko's mother

When it comes, there will be little doubt about the verdict,

and the sentence is likely to be a lengthy one.

But this case is about much more than the fate of one woman now.

Nadia Savchenko has become the embodiment of a conflict

Joining me now in the studio is Marina Pesenti,

director of the Ukrainian Institute in London, and from Moscow -

Marina, I will start with you, because it is hard to overstate how

important the case is seen in Ukraine, and what high regard Nadia

Savchenko 's health? Absolutely. It is a very symbolic and high-profile

case in Ukraine. There is a mixture of feelings. On one hand, it is a

sense of admiration, of the courage and determination and fearlessness

she has displayed, being in a very difficult situation with all the

odds stacked against her. She managed to turn the tables. On the

other hand, there is a feeling of indignation. The fact that the

Russian Federation, apart from the fact it has annexed part of our

territory and unleashed a war in another part, it also kidnaps our

citizens and brings charges against them, on their territory on very

trumped up charges in fact. Was she known before she was captured? No,

she did not have a public profile. She was in Iraq, she had been

fighting, I think she was the only woman in the Ukrainian air force so

she was a notable character? Probably she was better known in the

military because she is a female pilot and she is from the

prestigious aviation school and she also fought in Iraq but previously,

she did not have a public profile. Catty -- Katya can you tell us what

the Russian perspective is? Two Russian journalists died in Ukraine

two years ago when they came under shelling while filming a report

about the plight of refugees, and interestingly enough, this case has

attracted a lot of attention in the Western media and among Western

politicians, but while there is widespread criticism of the trial

itself, there is very little condemnation of the killing of the

two Russian journalists in fact. Even the BBC headline article on

that... I just wanted to say that 95% of that article was devoted to

the trial and what Nadia Savchenko had to say in her final speech,

whereas there were just three lines about how those journalists actually

got killed, which was in broad daylight and they were on duty when

they came under shelling. Does it matter to you whether Nadia

Savchenko was involved in that, Marina, would you have any regrets

over the killing of the Russian journalists? I certainly have

regrets over the loss of any life but I find it paradoxical that

Russia thinks it is a completely legitimate course of action, where

it kidnaps a citizen of another country, and brings charges against

that citizen in its own country, and we talk about what has happened, if

we for a split-second imagine that the charges are fair, and that it is

a crime committed by one Ukrainian citizen against other Ukrainian

citizens, apart from Russian journalists there were some

civilians. Russia claims it does not conduct any warfare against Ukraine,

it stands for territorial integrity of Ukraine, and on the other hand,

it conducts a trial of Ukrainian citizens on its territory. I dead

want to go through the trial but I want to talk about relationships

between Ukraine and Russia. Katya, as far as you are concerned, is the

war between the two countries over? Well, before I get to explain that,

I would like to reply to Marina. I just wonder whether Marina is as

critical of United States that considers it perfectly normal to

capture foreign citizens like they did with two Russian citizens whom

the US considers criminals and just those two guys were captured on

foreign soil while in Thailand and Africa and extradited to the US.

There were put on trial in the US and one was imprisoned just because

they are both Russian citizens, and the US did that despite Russia's

objection. That, as far as the procedure is concerned, when you say

it is totally unlawful for Nadia Savchenko to go on trial in Russia.

As for the war between Russia and Ukraine, I would say that it is

incorrect from the start to say there was a war between Russia and

Ukraine, because it was a war between two groups of the Ukrainian

society, those who supported the Ukrainian government and who were

fighting against them. So you cannot say it was a war between Russia and

Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly stated there is no war between

Russia and Ukraine to be stopped. It was a civil war. It is currently no

longer there, we hope, because the ceasefire is largely holding as both

the warring sides... We will not have time... We can recognise it. We

will not have time to pick up on all those points because Russia did an

excellent territory. Where DCD status of this now? Is it over and

it will stay like this in definitely? -- Wade UCB status? Do

is far from over. There were reports from the Ministry of Defence

reporting clashes and an exchange of fire, and shooting, from the rebels'

side. And also there was a report a few years ago that even though the

artillery fire had diminished, there have been cases of rocket propelled

grenades launched. In terms of military activity, it is still

ongoing and one has to remember that this is a hybrid war which has a lot

of elements to it, security forces operations and this is ongoing. I

wish we could continue this discussion but we do have to move

on. Thank you. The big referendum argument today

has concerned the Queen - is she an "outer", as the Sun

newspaper suggests. I think that's one of those issues

they call There will have to be some argument

about the EU itself at some point before the referendum,

but while we wait for that, don't focus on Her Majesty -

who is relatively untypical Look instead at the views

of ordinary voters. Outside London, Secunder Kermani

went to Rochdale to do just that. There is no Eurostar are riding at

this station, and that is perhaps the first sign that the membership

of this model railway club just outside Rochdale are not massive

fans of the EU. Is it the images of thousands of refugees streaming

across the continent that is Lee's -- leading them to vote to leave?

Yes, because it could be us next. I do not want to happen. When David

Cameron says we do not have to take quotas of refugees... I do not

believe it. I think we will. I think we will be forced to. We are ruled

by Brussels and what Brussels say we have to do. The scenes on the Greek

borders melding with existing grievances about previous waves of

immigration, from Eastern Europe, from Pakistan, and with a perception

of general decline. I have already more or less made my mind up but the

refugee crisis has galvanised me even more to thinking out. If you go

to the doctors are the surgeries, you are outnumbered. The NHS cannot

cope, they say. One of the reasons is because there are a lot of people

who have never put a high -- halfpenny into the running of

England through taxes, taking a share of the money from the NHS.

At this church they are listening to a lunchtime rendition of classical

European composers. According to pollsters, the Northwest is almost

evenly split between those in favour and those against remaining in the

union. The refugee crisis is not always the main concern. It is

something which is a product of this moment in time. I do not think it

should necessarily colour are how the European Union is. It will come

and go. We need to have compassion, we need to have humanity about it,

but I don't think that will necessarily sway our thoughts of how

we will vote on the European Union. When we voted to go into it, it was

the common market. It was not the European Union. That is what we

voted for. A common market of goods, not political interference and

involvement, which it has become. Rochdale is a strongly Labour seat

but in last year's election Ukip came second. The town has more

asylum seekers per capita than almost anywhere else in the country.

Many here have welcomed them. But there is also resentment, and not

just from white Britons. This local Labour councillor is in favour of

remaining in Europe but he knows the yes campaign cannot take votes from

the sizeable Pakistani community in Rochdale for granted. British Asians

have mixed views on it. A few people think we should take the refugees.

On the other side there are a lot of issues within the Asian community.

They think these refugees and asylum seekers are coming into this country

and making a problem for them. People who think this is the burden

coming into the economy and the people... We should leave the EU and

that will resolve the problem. I do not think it will resolve the

problem. We should educate them. His family have owned this

cash-and-carry for 60 years. EU red tape is a bigger issue than refugees

and migration for him. But he does have concerns about how many have

been settled here. We're getting too many. It is a big burden on the

taxpayer and British jobs and the economy. What is the solution to

that? Is it leaving the EU? Leaving the EU will put us in isolation. I

think it is best to stay within the EU, where David Cameron speech to

the rest of the nations and get more power, and we trade with them on our

terms, and our conditions. The refugee crisis may heighten debates

about whether to remain in the EU. But it will not decide them.

No, savour this graph because it is not often that you see

one move so persuasively in the right direction.

It goes back to 1969, and you can see that in the last

15 years, the line has basically fallen dramatically.

Well it is the rate of teenage pregnancies in England and Wales.

The number per thousand women aged 15 to 17.

The latest figure published this morning,

Something has gone right, although we still have a higher rate

of teenage pregnancy than similar countries in Western Europe.

of the Teenage Pregnancy Knowledge Exchange, and led

the Government strategy for tackling teenage pregnancy.

Allison, what has driven the graph down? First of all, it is a

fantastic celebration of the work of someone a people involved in the

strategy over 15 years. It was the first comprehensive strategy a

government had ever had in England, which involved education, health,

charities as well. It was a 10-year strategy with the commitment to give

young people choices. It was not a strategy which sat on the shelf. It

was delivered to councils. It is basically giving them contraception.

No. Choices around good sex education, so they could make

choices about whether they had sex. If they do have sex, where they

could go for contraception, making it easy to look after their sexual

health. Basically, Tony Blair comes to power in 1997 and within a year

and they announce this. You are effectively saying this is the

delayed reaction to what they get? Yes, but with all complex issues it

takes a long time to have an impact. The strategy for the first few years

was bedding in. The rate was coming down very slowly. We did image

strategy review in 2005 and we found that some areas were bringing their

rates down really well. And others were not making an impact. We

compared the two. The areas making the impact were delivering what they

have to deliver. It was a light bulb moment. Some of those areas said

there was nothing they could do about it. The counterpoint to the

claim was the Tony Blair government, they have come down everywhere, even

Denmark. That is already interesting point. European countries brought

their rates down steadily since the 1970s and that carried on. In other

in the speaking countries around the world, the graph does show a similar

pattern but they have all been trying to do the similar -- similar

things. It is an international programme about improving sex

education, making contraception easier. The World Health

Organisation are introducing that around the world. It is not one

thing that is common to the technology has changed, how many

young people are taking the morning after pill? The morning after pill,

it is a bit of a misnomer, you can take it three to five days after

unprotected sex, it is difficult to get the numbers. It is one part of

the jigsaw. It is not the overall solution. It is a woody good

stepping stone into more effective contraception, and of course it is a

very good emergency measure. But that on its own will not have

brought down rates. It is a jigsaw of different pieces. The debate over

whether children under 16 should be able to get contraception without

their parents knowing or consenting, that is happening? That was resolved

in 1985 after a long legal case. Anyone under 16 can get confidential

advice from a doctor or macro nurse. They are encouraged to talk to their

parents. That is an effective thing. But if they can't are, it is better

they can talk to a doctor or nurse for advice. Thank you.

Mexico has a well known problem with drug gangs

But it also has a less talked about problem with another kind

It's reached a worrying level, and lest you think that it's only

a concern for the families of rich industrialists, it no longer is.

Vladamir Hernandez went to Mexico City for the Our World

series, to investigate the cause and the consequence.

This is the call every family in Mexico dreads receiving -

Very few countries have such a high kidnap rate as Mexico.

And it is a crime that is not only affecting the wealthy,

but anyone in society walking down these streets -

anyone - can be a quick fix of cash for the kidnappers.

According to the authorities, 1500 people were kidnapped

But the National Institute of Statistics estimates at least

100,000 people are taken, and only a tiny fraction of cases

One victim, Roberto, was working as a blacksmith fixing

iron bars to a window in rural Mexico, when he was taken.

There was a boy, about 14, he was just a kid.

Another young guy, he had a pistol, a gun, and he pointed it at me.

They kicked me in the face and the ribs.

Roberto was released after a few hours, but the kidnappers then

took his family, who were later freed by the police.

His case is typical, according to private negotiator Max

He says the police haven't done enough.

The police say they are winning the battle against kidnappers.

And they are keen to publicise the success of raids like this

But this is just a small part of their role.

They work with families behind closed doors to try

and persuade the kidnappers to release their captives.

Alejandro, not his real name, is a police negotiator who has

agreed to play me recordings of a kidnapper made

The man who was kidnapped is a bus driver.

And when the kidnappers are ready to make a deal,

The negotiator's team eventually managed to free the bus driver.

But what is causing this wave of apparently random

To find out, I have arranged to meet a man who claims he is a kidnapper.

When I finally do meet him, I am surprised to find he does not

There are lots of different ways of kidnapping someone.

Generally I stare at the victim, let them see my eyes.

They start crying and I say, "Calm down, bro, we are going to do

I'm interested in the money, that's all."

Do you ever think about the relatives of the victim

But it is very rare we do something to someone who does not deserve it.

I don't start fights, but if one happens I make

I will stab you in the stomach, or bite your face, or just remove

something from you, maybe cut your throat with a knife

and mess with your windpipe a little bit.

With drugs you have clients and it is continuous.

You can make anything up to $2 million.

So it is hard to give up.

No, I don't have any regrets about the people I have killed.

But the truth is I've already BLEEP my life,

I can't verify what he said, but I am shaken by meeting him.

I don't think I have ever heard anyone talk about death,

torture, violence with such ease, with such coldness.

It's frightening because he's just like an ordinary young man talking

Knowing he was going to die soon, probably.

The police reunite dozens of families with their

Official police statistics show the number of kidnappings have

But the scars from kidnapping take a long time to heal.

Roberto, the blacksmith, has been traumatised by the attack.

He still doesn't know why he was targeted.

Do you think you will ever stop being afraid?

Not while there are crimes like this.

What makes me sad is that one of them was just a child.

He could have been at school, preparing to be a good person.

You can watch the Our World documentary Kidnapped In Mexico

on Saturday and Sunday on the News Channel at 21:30.

You can also follow the negotiation of a true kidnap story in real time

We woke to the news this morning of the death of Sir George Martin,

Paul McCartney called him a "second father", and he was the first

music producer to blend a classical training with rock and roll

We'll get a demonstration of what a difference he made

to certain songs, but first Stephen Smith has this medley

My main role would be telling them what to do with it.

This needs to be two and a quarter minutes long.

OK, we'll time the chorus, see how many choruses you need.

They were all thinking in terms of singles.

George Martin says have you got anything you would like to do.

I said, we have a song called Please, Please Me.

This is one that John had just written.

Get this bloody little mic out of the way.

# Last night I said these words to my girl

# Come on, come on, come on, come on

# Please, please me, like I please you.#.

At the end of that session I was able to say, you have

When I first met them none of them could play the piano very well

In order to communicate with them, I found when

I went over to the piano and said a chord and played it on the piano,

bunch of notes and white keys, it wouldn't mean a thing to them.

I thought, if I can play the chord on the guitar,

they will see my fingers and the shapes

At the same time they bought a piano and started to learn

They overtook me and got to play the piano better

# Baby's good to me you know she's happy as can be

George had done little or no rock and roll when we met him and we had

never been in the studio so we had a lot of learning to do.

He had a very great musical knowledge and background.

Amazing really how creative we could be in those circumstances.

and you would just remind us about halfway through the three-hour

period, well, there's just about enough on that one,

And so you learned to be brilliant, he said, modestly, in 1.5 hours.

They were finding new frontiers all the time.

I guess their success gave them confidence to do things

# Working is all very fine # But love can show you a better time.

# Baby you can drive my car, # Yes I'm gonna to be a star # baby,

# baby, you can drive my car, and baby, I love you...#.

Their ideas now were becoming more potent in the studio

and they would start telling me what they wanted

and they would start pressing me for more ideas.

He would come up with things like have you heard an oboe?

If you think about it, George had to deal

with all kinds of stuff with the Beatles.

John Lennon coming to him saying he wanted to hear the sound

I mean, how would you get the sound of

He was the least dictatorial person you could ever

come across in a recording studio and I think his methodology

was to allow the artist explore everything that

was possible to explore so we could all see that what we had

I do live each day as if I went to see tomorrow,

because that is the way to look at it.

What the hell am I doing wasting time talking

That compilation was curated by Steve Smith.

Now to properly understand what George Martin did,

how he took tunes and turned them into Beatles tracks,

we need a demonstration, so I'm joined

at the grand piano by Tom Donald, from

the London Contemporary School of Piano,

who's going to show us the inner workings of George Martin.

I think a lot of us like me have never understood what the producer

does or adds. Give us an example of what George Martin does to take a

vanilla track and add to it? If you take a song like Eleanor Rigby, you

would imagine the demo sounding like this, and he gets it and transcribes

it for a string quartet. These sounds, you would expect to hear in

Bach, not pop music. So it makes an enormous difference. You mentioned

string quartets because his thing was his classical background and he

blended with rock and roll. He blended it together. Not only older

classical music by Bach, if you look at a day in the life, the last track

from Sergeant Pepper, if you listen to the beginning of the track, it

sounds like a standard Beatles song, until he brings in Stockhausen

influence. That is an Avent guard German composer. Very uncommercial,

you could say. It brings this element, it is almost impossible to

do on a piano, but he brings it to an orchestral arrangement, it is

quite remarkable how he brings those two polar opposites together. It is

interesting listening to the archive, you think of the Beatles as

being a rock 'n' roll band, but later they are not just rock 'n'

roll. There is so much more to the Beatles than rock 'n' roll. That is

down to George Martin. You get a song like the Long and Winding Road.

Then he makes this orchestration that has horns in it, is grass

oriented. -- brass. There are beautiful lush harmonies. There is

something very British about it, it you could almost hear in Elgar, fawn

Williams, Gustav Holst. It is not obvious but it is definitely there

-- Ralph born Williams. He did bring other instruments in as well so it

was orchestral? And an odd choice of instruments sometimes. You get a

song like Fool On The Hill with a lovely melody. But he decides to

bring in a base Karen at -- clarinet. Most people don't even

know what a bass clarinet looks like. His accent of the clarinet on

the first and third beat of the bar, which is buried not pop music. It is

very classical. Most people clapped to pop songs on the second and

fourth heat of the bar, it is like you are at panto clapping along to

songs with the kids or something. Everything that you say, and what he

was saying, you must say of the five, perhaps this is sacrilege,

that he is the most musically accomplished? It is unimaginable

what the Beatles would have sounded like without George Martin. Is he

known in classical circles? Do you consider yourself a classical

pianist? I have a strong classical background but I'm really fascinated

by musicians who can cross the boundaries so effortlessly. What I

have said today, almost sounds like it is ridiculous. The way he

integrated it with their songs just worked so beautifully and it is part

of that legend. Thank you so much for demonstrating. You are welcome.