Wed, Jun 18, 2003 page5

• Bali survivors recount `horror' night in court

  • THE GUARDIAN
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  Three badly burned and emotionally scarred Australian survivors of last October's Bali bombings, in which 202 people died, gave harrowing testimony on Monday at the trial of one of the main suspects.

  In front of the impassive defendant, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, the first foreign witnesses to appear in the prosecutions of any of the 34 alleged perpetrators held the courtroom spellbound for two hours.

  One by one they described in graphic detail how bombs ripped through the packed Paddy's Bar and the Sari Club just after 11pm on Saturday Oct. 12.

  Two of the witnesses, Jason McCartney, 29, from Victoria and Peter Hughes, 43, from Perth, each peeled off one of the elastic tube bandages they have to wear permanently on their arms, legs and hands, to show the court their blistered limbs.

  Hughes, who suffered 54 percent burns, said of the evening: "It reminded me of a war movie or a horror movie. There was lots of screaming, lots of crying. There was too much, very much [crying], too many [victims]."

  He was thrown in the air by the first bomb, in Paddy's, struggled to his feet and escaped through the smoke and screams to the street outside.

  But just as he thought he was safe he was propelled back into the burning building by the blast of the second bomb, which exploded a few seconds later in a minibus parked outside the Sari Club on the other side of the road from Paddy's.

  McCartney, who was also in Paddy's, said the first explosion was like a "firework display."

  "There was a fizzing glow of orange light flying through the air," he said. "I was knocked to the ground and was briefly blinded by the flash of light."

  When his sight returned, McCartney, who suffered 50 percent burns, a perforated eardrum and shrapnel wounds to his back and left leg, could see little because of the dense smoke but managed to escape.

  The third witness, Stewart Anstee, was in the Sari Club and was knocked unconscious by the force of the second bomb.

  "When I woke up there was blood squirting from my neck and burns to my left arm," he said. "I also had several other injuries to my legs and saw lots of other injured people in the club."

  Three of the five people he was with were killed and another was badly injured.

  The mental and emotional injuries appeared to have been as bad as the physical ones as none of the witnesses had returned to full-time employment.

  "I was unable to work for approximately three months after the blast," said Anstee, an environmental scientist. "After I returned to work I needed to take seven days off to see doctors."

  But they could not do enough to help him and he has since resigned.

  McCartney, a professional Australian-rules footballer, also failed to recover sufficiently and resigned from the sport last week.

  He was still in great emotional pain, he said.

  "I have had to give up something that I love so much and have done for 13 years of my life," he said.

  Hughes said he had not returned to work because of his mental anguish.

  "I have lots of bad dreams, I have lots of flashbacks and lots of anger," he said. "I sometimes don't like myself because of the way I look. It's a memory that I will never forget."

  Several Australians in the public gallery were unable to contain their emotions during the proceedings and wiped tears from their eyes.

  Amrozi, 40, is accused of buying most of the chemicals used in the devices, the vehicle the Sari Club bomb was packed into and other vehicles the plotters used, and helping with the organization.

  Unlike in previous hearings, when he has often been smiling and saying that the foreigners deserved to die and suffer, he was on his best behavior. When given the chance to question the witnesses personally, he simply said on each occasion: "I understand what he has said but as to the truth of it I don't know."

  The witnesses also had to contend with the poor quality of the court-appointed translator, whose often inaccurate answers earned the witnesses rebukes from the five judges.
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