INDONESIA: A key suspect in last year's Bali blasts told an Indonesian court yesterday he was proud of the attack that killed whites and that it served them right.
Amrozi bin Nurhasyim (40), who is commonly known only as Amrozi, also said he had been involved in several bombings across Indonesia, including a blast outside the home of a Philippine ambassador in 2000 that killed two people.
The mechanic from Java island is charged with plotting, organising and carrying out crimes of terror and causing mass casualties in the October 12th Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists.
When asked how he felt about the impact of the Bali attack, Amrozi told the court: "There's some pride in my heart. For the white people, it serves them right." He said foreigners introduced moral decadence to Indonesia through television and Western lifestyles.
"They know how to destroy religions using the most subtle ways through bars, gambling dens. And you must realise the debauchery of their television," he told the court.
But Amrozi, testifying at his own trial for the first time, also said he was "more than remorseful" for the Balinese killed in the attack.
He said he had also helped prepare explosives for a blast at the home of the Philippine ambassador in Jakarta, bomb attacks in the eastern city of Ambon between 1999 and 2002 and at various churches on Christmas Eve 2000.
He said he provided the van that became the car-bomb that exploded outside the packed Sari Club in Bali.
"The car was brought here, then it was laden with a bomb. It was brought here for the purpose of bombing," he said.
Wearing a Muslim prayer cap and a white shirt, Amrozi appeared relaxed as he sat in the centre of the makeshift courtroom and chuckled as he explained how he and alleged chief bomb plotter, Imam Samudra (33), referred to the bomb by its code name "dodol", an Indonesian sweet.
"Nobody should know about it, so how could we say bomb? We usually said we were delivering dodol," he said.
Imam Samudra, a computer expert, told the court on Wednesday he had come up with the idea of attacking the US and its allies but Amrozi had chosen Indonesia's famous tourist island as the target.
- (Reuters)