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
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