The Bali Bombings Of 2002 : CASE REMAINS OPEN

While moral and physical cowards coo soothing, pleasing platitudes of "closure" - a word that does not exist in the King's English - the real (CIA) masterminds of the Bali bombings of 10/12/2002 have never been brought to justice, and the original Bali investigators await a break in the case, a decade on and even as the trail grows colder   

THE 5TH ESTATE
By Martin Tan
10/12/2012

On October 12, 2002 the Indonesian island of Bali experienced a terrorist attack that rocked the world. It was unquestionably well-coordinated and executed, the largest in the country's history.

Investigators and forensics experts from both national and international teams that had quickly been assembled flocked to the crime scene, ostensibly to begin what should have been a long, drawn out exercise in forensics and investigative sleuthing to identify and capture the foot soldiers, coordinators and masterminds behind the attack that has left over 190 known dead, scores missing without a trace and hundreds more wounded. 

It has turned out to be anything but that. 

This is the preamble to an analysis published on 01/03/2003 in The Jakarta Post on the bombings that took place at Jl. Legian, Kuta, Bali at approximately 2355 on 10/12/2002.  Over the past decade these words have proved to be prophetic. The original analysis has been removed from The Jakarta Post website by editors unaware that it has and continues to be archived, making them look like fools and placing them squarely in league with the CIA, ASIO and agencies determined to cover-up the real facts and protect the real perpetrators of this act of terror designed to bring Australia into the "war on terror" by the Bush administration.

The investigation team at The Jakarta Post was tasked with finding and bringing to justice the individuals that had perpetrated this act of terror. immediately, the team was drawn into a web of deceit, lies and obstruction as they frantically attempted to gather evidence from the blast sites at Paddy's Bar and the Sari Club before it was destroyed by the so-called "international investigation team" who were working just as hard to contaminate and destroy forensic evidence that would lead investigators to the individuals ultimately responsible for
an estimated 400-500 deaths.  

In order to carry out their orders, the "international investigators" eventually bulldozed all the evidence which was then loaded on to trucks and transported by boat to be unceremoniously dumped into the ocean off Benoa harbor, Bali.  Human victim remains were surely present in the sunken evidence.

The "official" death count from the bombings was just over 200, but could not and did not include the victims that were instantly vaporized at the Sari Club blast site and did not take into account the approximately 1,500 pounds of body parts that eventually were cremated, leaving The Jakarta Post team to estimate how many bodies that figure could account for.  It was an impossible task.  Also uncounted were the wounded that died in the aftermath, days, months or years later.

BACKGROUND

Within weeks of the publication of this analysis, lead investigator and Jakarta Post Senior Investigative Editor Robert S. Finnegan was fired from the English language daily, his team dismantled and the investigation ordered shut down by then chief editor Raymond Touran, who it turned out had betrayed Finnegan and his team by submitting daily reports on the course of the investigation to then U.S. Ambassador to Jakarta, Indonesia Ralph "Skip" Boyce, already under investigation by Finnegan for pedophilia prior to the bombings.

Ralph "Skip" Boyce

Finnegan's journalist visa was then cancelled and he was forced into exile in the U.S. along with his spouse Imas Kurniawati for five years.

Investigators on the case with other media outlets including both major broadcast and print media were told by their superiors at approximately the same time to shut down their investigations or be fired.

Boyce was eventually dismissed over the Pedogate scandal by his boss Condoleeza Rice in 2007, opening the door for Finnegan's return to Indonesia and the resumption of the active investigation into the bombings.

Active Investigation

Within a week, Finnegan was contacted by the former President of The UK Bali Bombing Victims Group, Jocelyn Waller and invited to dinner to discuss the case.

During this meeting, also attended by Finnegan's spouse Imas Kurniawati, Finnegan presented Waller with unpublished photographic evidence that de-bunked the "official" assertion that the large device responsible for the majority of deaths in Kuta was comprised of "conventional" explosives.  Waller, who lost a son in the bombings, was shattered and appeared to go into shock.  He asked Finnegan to suppress the evidence just presented to him and not publish it as it "would re-open old wounds, and there are certain people (victim family members) who would be extremely upset and wish to pursue this newly presented avenue."

Waller then offered Finnegan money to drop his investigation and Finnegan refused, outraged at the assumption that he could simply be bought off after the sacrifices made by the investigators involved.  The meeting was then terminated by Waller and the two never spoke again.  It was and remains unclear whether Waller was working alone or at the behest of someone else.

Over the course of the following years, new evidence continued to surface, including individuals who had become ill over the passing years with the same chronic ailments Finnegan suffered himself, and had almost killed him in 2005.  Only major surgery and hospitalization for two years under the care of an army of medical specialists saved his life.  The source of the ailment - at first thought by doctors to be a new virus contracted in the jungles of Indonesia - was never identified or diagnosed.

In 2010, Finnegan was contacted by a medical professional from New Zealand who had been present at Sanglah Hospital immediately following the bombings who displayed the same symptoms of an un-diagnosable chronic disease.  His symptoms matched Finnegan's exactly - exposure to heavy metals or radiation poisoning.  He is still alive as of this writing and still suffers from this mystery disease, as does Finnegan.

***

In 2002-2003, the investigation team at The Jakarta Post utilized the deductive method of investigation - compiling all the evidence and then eliminating it as the cause of the bombings piece-by-piece.  Here are their conclusions:

1.  Conventional explosives were eliminated.  Explosives experts worldwide including Marine Corps EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) could not account for the level of destruction present at the Sari Club blast site, then or now.  The ludicrous assertions by AFP representative Mick Keelty that the large bomb was composed of chlorate and TNT are as laughable today as they were in 2002.

2.  No evidence was ever obtained to link the Indonesian military to the bombings.

3.  The van driven by Amrozi was a decoy loaded down with a ridiculous mix of TNT, Ammonium Nitrate, HMX, Semtex, PETN, Chlorate, napalm and could have included others.  These explosive compounds were blown over the blast site, providing the "international investigating team" with cover for the real device, which was a small plutonium bomb, undetectable by conventional Geiger counters and most likely delivered in one of the hundreds of food carts in the area.  This will account for the lack of radiation detection at the site and the absence of immediate radiation sickness in survivors.  Plutonium must be ingested or otherwise introduced into the body in order to kill.

Sanglah Hospital, Denpasar missing and dead lists

4.  In addition to destroying forensic evidence, the fact that the "international investigation team" bulldozed both sites and surrounding areas indicates that the removal of plutonium was also their goal.  Choosing the ocean as a dump site would further dissipate any radiological material, making identification of the perpetrators that much more difficult, if not impossible.

5.  Prior to the bombings, the Australian government had refused to sign on to George W. Bush's "War on Terror."  This stance was reversed within days of the bombing.  Kuta Beach was chosen as the bombing objective due to it's permanent population of transients, drunks, druggies and pedophiles, making it difficult to identify them and reducing the risk that family members of victims would pressure authorities for information.  Some would simply disappear, never to be heard from again.  This was a "value added" bombing for the CIA and Bush:  To get the Australians "on board" with Bush's war on terror, and, to test out a radiological device untested on human beings in a built-up area, observing and recording the results.

6.  "Investigators" from the United States FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) were present at the blast sites with 24 hours.  The speed of their arrival has never been explained, indicating that they were already present when the bombings occurred.  Also present were over 30 "military personnel" (observers) from the UN Peacekeeping Forces stationed on East Timor, at least five of which were killed by the bombings, apparently having underestimated the yield of the large, untested device.

The bodies of these individuals were forcibly removed from the Sanglah Hospital morgue soon after by uniformed personnel from the E. Timor forces and flown out of the closed Ngurah Rai International Airport aboard a Conair Dash-7 sporting bogus tail numbers belonging to a Piper Cub based out of Queensland, Australia.


The true identification of the plane and it's pilots, crew and UN "passengers" have never been identified.  The tower and apron logs at Ngurah Rai were altered to reflect changes made to entries related to this illegal flight.  A Qantas air crew member on a medivac flight on 10/13/2002 confirmed this information, having observed C-FWYU on the tarmac and it's take off.  The plane was tracked to Singapore where it re-fueled and was then lost.

 7.  The General in charge of emergency operations at Ngurah Rai was so enraged at the illegal departure of C-FWYU he contacted an investigator on Finnegan's team and related the entire story.

Please click to enlarge log sheet

 8.  Doctors at Sanglah described burns to some victims as injuries they had never seen before - outside of pictures of "burns from Hiroshima and Nagasaki..."  When contacted at Sanglah by The Jakarta Post investigative team they were clearly terrified and refused comment, one Australian nurse actually suffering a mental breakdown in the presence of an investigator.

9.  The Jakarta Post investigative team initially rejected the possibility of a radiological attack as absurd, however as other possible scenarios were eliminated this was the last possibility still standing and therefore it must be concluded that it is at the least a likely possibility.

Former Indonesian President Gus Dur stated publicly that he did not believe Amrozi was responsible for the Sari Club bomb, and it was his belief that Amrozi knew nothing about it

10.  Indonesian authorities have indicated since the beginning (Bali Bombing Timeline) a belief that the real "masterminds" were foreign intelligence operators, and former  Indonesian President Gus Dur before his death stated on camera that "Amrozi was unaware of the larger bomb.."

Therefore, taking into account the above it is the informed opinion of the independent Jakarta Post investigators:

That despite international efforts to pin the entire "official" Bali bombings scenario on multiple "masterminds," each and every attempt has been shot down;

That there is a distinct possibility the main blast outside the Sari Club was radiological in nature;

That the U.S. CIA and other intelligence agencies were responsible or complicit in the bombings;

That the AFP (Australian Federal Police) and Australian intelligence agencies were complicit in the cover-up;

That there was and is a massive cover-up of the Bali bombings that continues to this day.

Martin Tan is an independent investigative journalist and one of the original Bali bombing investigators.  

Posted in: Bali Bombing,Bush War Criminals,CIA Black Ops,Indonesia Bombings,Indonesian Law