The Times meets the Bali bombers
DENPASAR – The Times reporter Michael Sheridan has been inside the jail in Java where the three Bali bombers are being held.
The three bombers are making last-ditch appeals to avoid a firing squad
There were 202 people killed on the night of Saturday, October 12, 2002, when the crime planned by these men was carried out.
Imam Samudra, 38, was the planner who chose the targets in Bali and organised two suicide bombers to carry out the attack.
In the prison, Sheridan reported, Samudra wore a fine blue robe, leading his three young children around by the hand and chatting to his wife and his mother, both veiled.
Ali Ghufron, better known as Mukhlas, 48, was the financier who once met Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan while making his own pilgrimage from theologian to jihadist.
He sat cross-legged on the floor, lecturing to his friends, said Sheridan.
Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, 46, dubbed “the smiling bomberâ€, was the village mechanic who bought the explosives and the Mitsubishi van used as a car bomb.
He rose from the floor, kissed Sheridan on both cheeks and said, “Salaam aleikum [peace be upon you],†with a cheery grin.
The first suicide bomber walked into Paddy’s Bar and set off a bomb in the middle of a crowd of customers. The second bomber waited for people to flee into the street then detonated the Mitsubishi, packed with more than a ton of explosives, outside the Sari Club.
The victims were incinerated or flayed, died of shock or perished from burns and injuries later.
For Australia, with 88 dead, it was a national tragedy, the greatest peacetime loss of life in the country’s history
All three men spoke to Sheridan.
Amrozi told him, “My smile is my weapon. It makes my enemies upset. This is a very special weapon for jihad.â€
Amrozi said he had read 500 books while in custody, mainly on Islam, and that he studied developments pointing to the imminent ruin of the United States, sometimes without any need of news media.
“I have received a sixth sense from Allah, which indicates to me one or two days in advance anything massive that may happen in the world,†he confided.
Full story: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3466833.ece
Ian Jarrett
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