Khabar Southeast Asia

Witnesses detail impact of Bali bombings

Khabar Southeast Asia
Witnesses detail impact of Bali bombings
The attacks that killed 202 also dealt a massive blow to the region’s economy, Balinese officials said Thursday.
Testifying Thursday (April 12th) in the trial of accused Bali bomber Umar Patek, Balinese officials spoke of the impact the 2002 attacks had on the island’s tourism industry, while a forensic doctor recalled the horrific aftermath.
“At the very beginning, we could not identify the victims because many of them were damaged and could not be recognised anymore,” said the doctor, Ida Bagus Putu of Denspasar’s Sanglah Hospital.
“After three months of identification processes, we could identify 199 out of 202 people.”
The bodies had burns as well as wounds showing that objects had penetrated them at high speed, he said.
“Other than that, we also received 325 body parts from the victims, but we could not identify 140 body parts because they had become rotten,” he told the court.
Doctors were able to distinguish 78 women and 117 men among the victims, but others could not be identified by gender, the doctor testified.
The twin bombings on the night of October 12th, 2002 – one carried out by a suicide bomber wearing an explosives-laden vest, the other a massive car bomb detonated outside a crowded nightclub – are considered Indonesia’s worst-ever terror attack. According to Balinese officials who spoke during Thursday’s trial proceedings, they also increased poverty on the island by disrupting a vital sector in its economy.
“Compared to the hotel occupancy in October and November 2001 and 2002, the number dropped significantly [after the bombings]. The bomb attack was really an impoverishment process for Bali,” testified I Gusti Ngurah Oka Darmawan, the former head of the tourism department in Badung.
Eighty percent of district revenues come from the hotel and tourism industries, which also have an economic impact on surrounding localities, he said.
“It took us two years for recovery,” he added.
Ngurah Mas Wijaya Kusuma, an immigration officer from Ngurah Rai Airport, told the court that the bombings had significantly affected the number of tourists coming from abroad.
“According to our data, the number of foreign tourist dropped 70% compared to 2001. Before the attack, the number of foreign tourists stood at around 100,000 to 159,000 visiting Bali every month,” he said.
As of September 2002, the number stood at 153,000. But the figure dropped to 81,063 in October and 31,477 the following month, Ngurah said.
Patek, the defendant in Thursday’s proceedings, is the last Bali bombing suspect to go on trial and faces the death penalty if found guilty. His trial began in February and is expected to last four months.
The main actors in the bombings – Mukhlas, Amrozi and Imam Samudra – were convicted and executed in 2008.
Prosecutors on Thursday called to the stand two men convicted for their supporting roles in the attack, hoping to shed more light on how much Patek knew about the plot. He has acknowledged mixing the bombs but insists he was in the dark concerning the actual plans for their use.
One of the men, Sarjiyo, confirmed that he and Patek attended a military training camp in Pakistan, where they studied war strategy, bomb making, and mapping.
In September 2002, as Sarjiyo was busy mixing 700kg of explosive materials, he requested Patek’s help, the witness said.
Patek’s role in the bomb preparation was minimal and limited to the final stages, he explained.
“When Patek arrived, I was about to finish mixing the material and there were 50kg of explosive material left over. So I asked him to help me to finish it because I knew that Patek has similar knowledge,” Sarjiyo said.
The trial proceedings will resume on Monday

Money for Bali bombing came from bin Laden, witnesses say

Khabar Southeast Asia
Money for Bali bombing came from bin Laden, witnesses say
 
Two former associates of alleged Bali bomb maker Umar Patek testified that funds from al-Qaeda paid for the Mitsubishi used in the lethal 2002 attack.
Osama bin Laden sent as much as $30,000 to the militants who carried out the 2002 Bali bombing, witnesses in the trial of terror suspect Umar Patek testified. The funds, they said, covered numerous expenses incurred by the bombers
“I actually did not know where the money came from but [convicted bomber] Mukhlas told me that it was received gradually from Osama,” Mohammad Ikhsan, also known as Idris, told the West Jakarta District Court on Monday (March 26th).
The al-Qaeda funds, he added, went towards the purchase of a Mitsubishi L300, used as a car bomb outside a crowded nightclub in Bali’s Kuta resort.
“Apart from that, the funding was also used to purchase the material for manufacturing bombs, two motorbikes, renting a house, and also the living costs for members of the Bali bomb terrorist network,” Idris said.
His testimony echoes the one given by a fellow witness, Ali Imron, who is the younger brother of Mukhlas. Imron told the court Thursday that Mukhlas had received the money personally from the al-Qaeda leader.
“In 2001, while my brother was in Afghanistan, he met Osama bin Laden and carried back $30,000 in order to carry out amaliah jihad in Southeast Asia,” said Imron, who received a life sentence in 2003 for his role in the plot. Mukhlas—also known as Ali Ghufron—and another brother of Imron’s, Amrozi, were executed in January 2003.
Much of the focus in the Patek trial has been on whether the defendant, who has admitted to mixing the bombs used in the Bali attack, was culpable for how they were used. Patek, a 42-year-old former operative with the Jemaah Islamiyah extremist network, has denied that he knew the details concerning the bomb plot.
He faces six charges, including premeditated murder, in connection with the Bali bombings and attacks carried out against six Jakarta churches on Christmas Eve in 2000, as well as identification fraud and illegal possession of firearms and explosives. Having fled the country in 2003, he was apprehended in January 2011 in Pakistan and sent back to Indonesia to face justice.
If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
Key witnesses have corroborated charges that he mixed the deadly chemical cocktails that were detonated in the attacks. On Monday, Idris said that on one occasion when he came to deliver food to the house where the bombers were staying, he saw Patek mixing the explosive materials.
“I actually only saw it for a second and was not sure what kind of material that was mixed by Patek because I did not see the substance that was mixed. However I did see that the explosive material, which was sent from Lamongan [in East Java], had been opened,” Idris said.
On Thursday, Imron said Patek appeared to express hesitation after a mishap that occurred as the group moved a filing cabinet containing the lethal stew.
“Amrozi, who was joking around or actually annoyed, dragged the filing cabinet instead of lifting it up,” he said. “It caused explosive materials, which were scattered on the floor, to rub against each other and cause an explosion inside the house.”
After the incident, Imron said, Patek interrupted the others and said “perhaps it is a sign we must not bomb.”

Patek lawyers: client didn’t know what bombs were for

Khabar Southeast Asia

Patek lawyers: client didn’t know what bombs were for

Defense contends that Umar Patek was not part of the Bali terror plot, although he admits to manufacturing the explosives used.

Closeted away in a rented flat, he allegedly spent weeks manufacturing a massive bomb that was used in the 2002 Bali attacks. But Umar Patek and his lawyers say no one can prove he actually knew what his handiwork was going to be used for.

“Patek was invited by Imam Samudra [to mix the explosives] and he only took part in constructing the bombs. But actually Patek was not involved in the planning or its implementation,” attorney Asludin Hatjani told reporters outside the court.

Samudra, a university-educated computer expert described by police as the “field commander” of the Bali terrorists, was convicted in 2003 and executed by firing squad in November 2008 along with two accomplices, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim and Ali Ghufron.

Although Patek manufactured bombs at their bidding, that doesn’t prove he was involved in the plot, his defense lawyers argue. Therefore they say, he should not be charged with premeditated murder – one of six counts brought against him in his indictment.

“There is no legal argument that could prove the defendant deliberately participated in the plan to take lives,” another lawyer, who goes only by the name Ainal, told the court.

Prosecutors in the case, however, say Patek was an integral part of the conspiracy, even if he neither transported the bombs to the attack site, nor helped set them off.

“If a group of people co-operate to plan and conduct a crime of killings, it doesn’t matter who finishes the job. They are all involved,” prosecutor Bambang Suharyadi said.

Over 200 people died when the 700kg bomb, hidden in a Mitsubishi van, exploded outside the popular Sari Club on Kuta Beach. Most victims were young foreigners, though the blast also killed locals who worked in the area or were just passing by.

Patek’s defense team has also argued that terrorism laws adopted by Indonesia in 2003 can’t be applied to earlier cases, including the Bali bombing. His lawyers contest the claim that Patek participated in a jihadist training camp in the province of Aceh.

“He was at the site, but was only there to attend a wedding,” Hasludin said.

The 45-year-old Patek could be sentenced to death if convicted, and prosecutors have said they will push for the maximum penalty. He is a “dangerous figure wanted not only in Indonesia but also in other countries such as the Philippines. He has caused the deaths of many,” Bambang said.

Some analysts argue, however, that executing Patek would hinder rather than help the effort to root out violent extremism.

“It is not that I defend Patek, but it needs to be understood that he is a goldmine of information where we can always get more information about terrorist networks, particularly in South East Asia,” said Noor Huda Ismail, a Jakarta-based analyst at the Institute of International Peace Building.

According to Huda, Patek could play a role in neutralising the emergence of new radical networks, in part because of his knowledge concerning recent developments such as the Aceh camp and its leader Dulmatin, killed by police in March 2010.

There would be precedents for handing down a lighter sentence if Patek renounces extremism. In 2003, judges spared the life of convicted Bali bomber Ali Imron, who had expressed repentance over his actions and described them as misguided.

“Our capabilities as Indonesians are something to be proud of, but they were used for a wrong purpose,” said Imron, who testified he received training in Afghanistan on how to make bombs.

“In my heart, I regret this. I want to apologise to the victims’ families in Indonesia and to foreign families.”

Patek, however, has yet to signal remorse over the carnage in Bali. In October 2011, he appeared emotionless as he accompanied police on a re-enactment of the devastating attack.

He is the top remaining suspect in the Bali night clubs bombing, which focused worldwide attention on the al-Qaeda-linked group Jemaah Islamiyah and its goal of creating a pan-Islamic theocracy across Southeast Asia.