# Joe’s Chilling Escape From The 'Forgotten' Bali Bombing

An episode of [True Crime Conversations](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469153910), 8 Apr 2026, 1 h 21 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/3ea926be-9be7-482a-8ac3-a44f016e43d1/abaa347e-8ac5-454e-85f9-aa64005c285f/885c513a-2781-4e76-a710-b426003cb631/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d9fdc19-147e-4f77-8d3f-aa64005e5923

On October 1, 2005, terror struck Bali when three suicide bombings ripped through crowded restaurants in Jimbaran Bay and Kuta, killing 20 people and injuring more than 100. Among those caught in the blasts was 20-year-old Newcastle local Joe Frost. Thrown face-down into the sand, ears ringing and legs burning, Joe survived - but others at his table were killed or left with life-changing injuries. Now a journalist, Joe is revisiting the attack through his podcast Forgotten Bombs: Bali 2005, speaking with survivors, investigators, and even those linked to Jemaah Islamiyah. LINKS Listen to Forgotten Bombs: Bali 2005 here. If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. GET IN TOUCH Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at truecrime@mamamia.com.au or send us a voice note. Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes. CREDITS Guest: Joe Frost Host: Gemma Bath Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy Audio Engineer: Jacob Round Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: It's just before seven pm on a beautiful Saturday night
[0:04] Speaker 1: in October two thousand and five, and jim Bran Beach
[0:07] Speaker 1: in Bali is.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Full of tourists.
[0:10] Speaker 1: It's a popular hotspot known for its sunsets and seafood,
[0:14] Speaker 1: and twenty year old Joe Frost is enjoying some bintangs
[0:17] Speaker 1: with eighteen locals from his hometown of Newcastle, New South Wales.
[0:22] Speaker 2: Then a large bang shutters the air.
[0:26] Speaker 1: At first they think it might be a gas bottle explosion,
[0:30] Speaker 1: maybe a barbecue, but then a few minutes later another explosion,
[0:35] Speaker 1: this time feels like it's.
[0:37] Speaker 2: Right on top of Joe.
[0:39] Speaker 1: His ears are screaming, his face is in the sand,
[0:44] Speaker 1: his shorts feel like they're on fire. Joe survives, but
[0:49] Speaker 1: that night, across three bombs, twenty people don't. Bali has
[0:55] Speaker 1: been hit by its second terror attack in just three years.
[1:04] Speaker 1: I'm Jemma Bath and you're listening to True Crime Conversations,
[1:08] Speaker 1: a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking
[1:12] Speaker 1: to the people who know the most about them. Joe
[1:15] Speaker 1: is lucky to be alive. The two people to his
[1:18] Speaker 1: right died. The two people to his left were critically injured.
[1:24] Speaker 1: He found out later the terrorist was likely facing him
[1:28] Speaker 1: when his bomb went off. He was in the blind
[1:31] Speaker 1: spot and it saved his life. It's possible that the
[1:35] Speaker 1: last thing the terrorists saw before he ignited himself was
[1:38] Speaker 1: the back of Joe's head.
[1:41] Speaker 2: There were three.
[1:42] Speaker 1: Bombs that night, two in Jimbran and a third in Kutah.
[1:47] Speaker 1: Twenty people died, fifteen Indonesians, one Japanese, and four Australians.
[1:54] Speaker 1: Three were at Joe's table in his group from his hometown,
[2:00] Speaker 1: married couple Fiona and Colins Malinsky, both fifty four and
[2:04] Speaker 1: forty eight.
[2:05] Speaker 2: Year old Jennifer Williamson.
[2:07] Speaker 1: Sixteen year old Brendan Fitzgerald died in the couter explosion.
[2:12] Speaker 1: There were hundreds more injured, fractured limbs, destroyed eyes, detached,
[2:17] Speaker 1: Retina's shrapnel wounds.
[2:20] Speaker 2: The effects of that night were long lasting.
[2:23] Speaker 1: Over the years, Joe has found that people often assume
[2:26] Speaker 1: he means the two thousand and two bombings when he
[2:29] Speaker 1: tells his story.
[2:31] Speaker 2: Just three years prior to the attack, he survived.
[2:34] Speaker 1: Two hundred and two people, including eighty eight Australians, were
[2:37] Speaker 1: murdered in three bombings in Bali.
[2:40] Speaker 2: Two hit busy Cooter Knight spots the third hit the
[2:44] Speaker 2: American Consulate. It's for that reason.
[2:46] Speaker 1: Joe has called his podcast Forgotten Bombs Now. As season journalist,
[2:52] Speaker 1: Joe felt ready to revisit the attack that in many
[2:55] Speaker 1: ways reshaped his and.
[2:56] Speaker 2: His family's life.
[2:58] Speaker 1: He wanted to know who behind it and why and
[3:02] Speaker 1: here from those he survived the attack alongside. Twenty years on,
[3:06] Speaker 1: Joe joins us Now, Joe, thank you for coming on
[3:13] Speaker 1: True Crime Conversations. Tell me about yourself. You're from Newcastle,
[3:17] Speaker 1: as am I How did you find yourself as a
[3:20] Speaker 1: twenty year old man on a trip to Bali.
[3:25] Speaker 3: I do you know what? I'm going to pull you
[3:27] Speaker 3: up on one thing there when I was twenty, I
[3:29] Speaker 3: was like, I am not a.
[3:30] Speaker 1: Man of all the things to pick me up on.
[3:35] Speaker 3: I am but a boy. And it was particularly emphasized,
[3:39] Speaker 3: I suppose by the fact that it was a family
[3:42] Speaker 3: holiday and I was there with my parents, and I
[3:45] Speaker 3: was there with a group of people that were sort
[3:48] Speaker 3: of teenagers. So the youngest of the group would have
[3:51] Speaker 3: been my little brother, who was ten. There was the
[3:53] Speaker 3: bulk of the kids that were there were sort of
[3:56] Speaker 3: sixteen seventeen years old, and they were these boys who
[3:59] Speaker 3: had organized to go on a trip. They had planned
[4:02] Speaker 3: to do a dry run of schoolies. So it was
[4:05] Speaker 3: the end of year eleven, and they were like, yeah,
[4:08] Speaker 3: we're going to do a dry run of schoolers. We're
[4:09] Speaker 3: just going to go to Bali on our own. It's
[4:11] Speaker 3: going to be sick.
[4:12] Speaker 2: Yeah. Cool.
[4:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, And obviously their parents were like, you what, No,
[4:16] Speaker 3: that's absolutely not going to happen. So the parents said, look,
[4:21] Speaker 3: we'll come with you. We'll all stay at the same hotel.
[4:24] Speaker 3: You guys can have your own rooms, you can do
[4:26] Speaker 3: your own thing. We'll sort of stay out of your hair,
[4:28] Speaker 3: but we're not having you go to Bali on your own.
[4:31] Speaker 3: And it was this group of boys and their parents
[4:33] Speaker 3: came along, and then you know, they invited other parents,
[4:36] Speaker 3: and then other people sort of looped in as well,
[4:39] Speaker 3: and it ended up being a group of about fifty
[4:41] Speaker 3: of us. And I was I would consider like I
[4:45] Speaker 3: was among the oldest of the kids that were there,
[4:48] Speaker 3: So at twenty, I was still sort of grouped in
[4:51] Speaker 3: with like I certainly felt closer and definitely was closer
[4:54] Speaker 3: to my ten year old brother than I was to
[4:56] Speaker 3: the forty and fifty year old parents. And there's this
[5:01] Speaker 3: element of you still do it now sometimes where like
[5:06] Speaker 3: you're over there and you're like, I'm drinking a beer.
[5:09] Speaker 3: Later on, I might smoke a cigarette. I better like
[5:12] Speaker 3: make sure I take my deodorant with me so that
[5:14] Speaker 3: I can sprain myself so that Mum and Dad don't
[5:16] Speaker 3: smell anything on me, Like, yeah, because deodorant covers up
[5:19] Speaker 3: the smell of for sure those clove cigarettes. Anyway, So yeah,
[5:24] Speaker 3: I was yeah, family holiday, and I think for us
[5:28] Speaker 3: there was an element of it being a bit of
[5:30] Speaker 3: a last hurrah. Mum and Dad were conscious of the
[5:33] Speaker 3: fact that, so I'm one of six, and so for
[5:36] Speaker 3: all of us to go over on a holiday hadn't
[5:40] Speaker 3: happened in a long time. This was going to be
[5:41] Speaker 3: the last one. And it ended up not even happening
[5:43] Speaker 3: like that because my older brother had UNI exams so
[5:46] Speaker 3: he couldn't come. So there was myself, my four younger
[5:50] Speaker 3: brothers and sisters, Mum and dad, and then this group
[5:53] Speaker 3: of all the others and their parents, and there were
[5:55] Speaker 3: sort of somewhere between forty and fifty of us.
[5:57] Speaker 1: That's wild, yeah, trip, did you know most of them
[6:02] Speaker 1: or many of them? Because did you know the surfer
[6:04] Speaker 1: boys like, where did your family fit in?
[6:06] Speaker 3: So the central family were the Griffiths family, and they're
[6:13] Speaker 3: a real glue family. So they had three boys, Kyle,
[6:17] Speaker 3: who was a couple of years older than me, Dane
[6:19] Speaker 3: who was my age and we'd been best mates in
[6:21] Speaker 3: primary school, and then Jordan who was three years younger.
[6:24] Speaker 3: And it was Jordan and his mates who were attempting
[6:26] Speaker 3: to do the dry run of school is And Jordan
[6:28] Speaker 3: was the same age as my little sister Anna, so
[6:30] Speaker 3: they were mates, and she was mates with all of
[6:32] Speaker 3: those boys, and then I'm mates with Dane, and so
[6:35] Speaker 3: that's the other thing, is like, as much as I'm
[6:36] Speaker 3: not necessarily that close with a lot of the boys,
[6:39] Speaker 3: we'd all hung out together at the Griffiths place. And
[6:42] Speaker 3: then parents know parents, and you know, they get together
[6:44] Speaker 3: for you know, drinks or just family stuff, and so
[6:48] Speaker 3: if you didn't know them know them it was a
[6:51] Speaker 3: step removed and we'd all sort of met and there
[6:54] Speaker 3: was a you know, it wasn't like there was anyone
[6:57] Speaker 3: there that I was like, who's this and I'll never
[6:58] Speaker 3: speak to them. It was I've only met them recently,
[7:01] Speaker 3: and a lot of the others I've known seriously. Their
[7:03] Speaker 3: whole lives.
[7:04] Speaker 2: What an epic adventure to even plan.
[7:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, all at.
[7:09] Speaker 2: The same hotel.
[7:11] Speaker 1: Yes, fifty of you, Like, I know, we've got to
[7:13] Speaker 1: get past this, but it's just such a unique kind
[7:16] Speaker 1: of way to start this story.
[7:18] Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, And I suppose it really it emphasizes the
[7:21] Speaker 3: closeness of the group and how there was this tightness
[7:24] Speaker 3: to us all, even if it was you know, and
[7:27] Speaker 3: when disaster strikes, even if you're a little bit looser
[7:31] Speaker 3: than you know, than family, your bond pretty tight pretty quick.
[7:36] Speaker 2: So it's two thousand and five.
[7:38] Speaker 1: There had been a bombing in Bali in two thousand
[7:41] Speaker 1: and two, two hundred plus people killed, eighty eight Australians.
[7:47] Speaker 1: Was that front of mine? I'm guessing not for you
[7:48] Speaker 1: as a twenty year old, but for many in the.
[7:50] Speaker 3: Group, certainly for me, it wasn't. And I sort of
[7:54] Speaker 3: got this theory about how I think maybe Einstein had
[7:58] Speaker 3: this theory about how time is really but when you're
[8:02] Speaker 3: twenty years old, something that happened three years ago is
[8:06] Speaker 3: a lifetime ago. Three years when you're twenty is so
[8:09] Speaker 3: long ago, Whereas now three years ago, I'm like, oh,
[8:12] Speaker 3: that was yesterday. Like so for me, going over. I'm like, yeah,
[8:17] Speaker 3: that was three years ago. I absolutely I couldn't be
[8:22] Speaker 3: less concerned about it. And my big concern was the
[8:26] Speaker 3: thing that had been really in the forefront of Australian
[8:31] Speaker 3: news at the time was drug smuggling, because Chappelle Korby
[8:35] Speaker 3: had been arrested sort of about a year earlier, and
[8:38] Speaker 3: the Bali nine drug smuggling thing was sort of going
[8:42] Speaker 3: on at the time as well, and so there was
[8:44] Speaker 3: this whole situation of basically, what's going to happen when.
[8:49] Speaker 1: We get to the airport and what if someone puts
[8:51] Speaker 1: something in our bag?
[8:52] Speaker 3: Yes, what if someone puts something in our bag? And
[8:55] Speaker 3: getting through the airport that was when I was just
[8:57] Speaker 3: sort of like, oh okay. It wasn't like it was
[9:01] Speaker 3: a big fear, but there was just this little thing
[9:03] Speaker 3: in the back of your head like, yeah, I don't know,
[9:05] Speaker 3: they said they planted it, so maybe someone's going to
[9:07] Speaker 3: plant And.
[9:08] Speaker 1: I feel like, even as a thirty five year old,
[9:10] Speaker 1: I think that when I go through the airport and
[9:12] Speaker 1: I've done nothing wrong, I'm like, someone's gonna get me.
[9:15] Speaker 2: What's going to happen? Yeah, you haven't done anything wrong?
[9:17] Speaker 3: No? Well, yeah, not yet and so for me it
[9:22] Speaker 3: wasn't it wasn't there, but certainly for some members of
[9:24] Speaker 3: the group, and I'm sure the parents had a little
[9:27] Speaker 3: bit more of that concern. And I know my friend Alita,
[9:31] Speaker 3: who she was twenty one at the time, she was
[9:37] Speaker 3: very conscious of it and had concerns about going to
[9:40] Speaker 3: Bali and it was her first time ever going overseas. Wow,
[9:43] Speaker 3: so she was worried about it. But there was also
[9:48] Speaker 3: a thing we were doing because this is, you know,
[9:50] Speaker 3: four years into the War on Terror, and there were
[9:53] Speaker 3: it's so funny to remember that time and how like
[9:56] Speaker 3: remember post nine to eleven, people were like wearing American
[10:00] Speaker 3: flags as T shirts. There was this real solidarity with
[10:03] Speaker 3: like we stand with the Americans, and therefore there was
[10:06] Speaker 3: also this like we stand against terrorism, and the best
[10:09] Speaker 3: way to stand against terrorism is to live your life
[10:12] Speaker 3: as if nothing is going to happen. And if you're
[10:15] Speaker 3: if you're scared of what might happen, you're letting the
[10:18] Speaker 3: terrorists win. Yeah, So there was also that little thing,
[10:21] Speaker 3: and I was a little bit like, yeah, I'm going
[10:23] Speaker 3: to Bali, Like if you're pardon my French, fuck you guys,
[10:26] Speaker 3: like you know, like I'm I'm I'm brave. I'm I'm
[10:29] Speaker 3: not going to change who I am because of terrorists
[10:31] Speaker 3: Like that's you know, that's that's letting them win.
[10:33] Speaker 2: So nothing had happened in three years.
[10:35] Speaker 3: So three years, yeah, that's a lifetime ago.
[10:38] Speaker 1: So take me to October. First, it's a Saturday. What
[10:42] Speaker 1: do you remember about the day, because you're all staying
[10:45] Speaker 1: in one hotel? Yes, did you all hang out together.
[10:49] Speaker 3: In sort of of an evening we would all get together.
[10:52] Speaker 3: I remember we'd had like organized a dinner one evening,
[10:56] Speaker 3: and otherwise it had sort of been you peel off
[11:00] Speaker 3: into your age groups. So I'd been hanging out with
[11:02] Speaker 3: Dane Griffiths by the day and at night we'd gone
[11:06] Speaker 3: out to you know, the bars and nightclubs and that
[11:09] Speaker 3: sort of thing. And on the Saturday, we've been there
[11:14] Speaker 3: for I suppose about three days at that stage, and
[11:17] Speaker 3: it had just been sort of you know, do what
[11:19] Speaker 3: you like, you know, spend your days surfing, shopping, whatever.
[11:22] Speaker 3: But on that day there had been a cultural tour
[11:27] Speaker 3: had been organized, and so we all piled onto a
[11:31] Speaker 3: bus that was I say, all if memory serves the
[11:35] Speaker 3: boys who had sort of got the trip going were like,
[11:38] Speaker 3: you have fun with that. We're definitely not.
[11:40] Speaker 2: I can't imagine sixteen year old boys wanting to go
[11:41] Speaker 2: on to cultural.
[11:42] Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that wasn't for them. But you know, the
[11:46] Speaker 3: parents and the younger kids and my little brothers and sisters.
[11:50] Speaker 3: We piled onto this bus and we went up into
[11:53] Speaker 3: the mountains. We went to ubud, We went to the
[11:57] Speaker 3: we went to a market, we went to we had
[11:59] Speaker 3: a really love lunch somewhere. We went to there's like
[12:02] Speaker 3: a monkey forest.
[12:04] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[12:04] Speaker 3: The big incident of that day was that one of
[12:06] Speaker 3: the kids, Louis letterwasher Leader's younger brother, he got bitten
[12:09] Speaker 3: by one of the monkeys.
[12:10] Speaker 2: That's actually pretty bad.
[12:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, quite diseased, yes exactly. Yeah. And it was
[12:16] Speaker 3: one of those like oh and you know, like, well,
[12:19] Speaker 3: we know what's going to be the thing we always
[12:20] Speaker 3: remember for the rest of our lives, for our time
[12:22] Speaker 3: in Bali, when Louis got bitten by a monkey and
[12:26] Speaker 3: h And anyway, we made our way back to the
[12:29] Speaker 3: hotel in the evening and it had been a long day.
[12:33] Speaker 3: We'd obviously seen a lot of sights and it was
[12:36] Speaker 3: like Bali is just so hot, and it had just
[12:39] Speaker 3: been so hot and there hadn't been air conditioning on
[12:42] Speaker 3: the bus, and the tour guide had he just he
[12:48] Speaker 3: didn't have an off switch, and he just talked and
[12:50] Speaker 3: talked and talked, and so he got back and he said, look,
[12:55] Speaker 3: if you would like, as like an added extra, we'll
[12:58] Speaker 3: go to jim And Beach for dinner. It's got this
[13:01] Speaker 3: beautiful sunset, this amazing seafood. You know, a few extra
[13:05] Speaker 3: dollars to jump on the bus. You go and you
[13:07] Speaker 3: sort yourselves out dinner. You know, it'll be a beautiful evening.
[13:10] Speaker 3: Who'd be up for that? And all the kids on
[13:13] Speaker 3: the bus were like hard pass. Yeah, absolutely not, And
[13:17] Speaker 3: that's completely understandable. And I was leaning towards that as well,
[13:22] Speaker 3: and in particular because my parents were like, we're going
[13:26] Speaker 3: to stay with the kids. You know, they're not getting
[13:28] Speaker 3: back on the bus, and so I was sort of like, ah,
[13:31] Speaker 3: it would be me and other parents, a bunch of adults,
[13:35] Speaker 3: a bunch of adults. Yeah. As a boy, yes, I
[13:39] Speaker 3: was like, I don't know if I want to do that.
[13:42] Speaker 3: And I remember having a word to my dad about it,
[13:43] Speaker 3: like yeah, I don't think I'm going to go. And
[13:45] Speaker 3: he said, look, ALITEA is going to go. So you'll
[13:47] Speaker 3: have heard a chat too, and mate, like when are
[13:50] Speaker 3: you going to get this opportunity again? You go? You know,
[13:53] Speaker 3: it's a beautiful sunset, amazing seafood, it's going to cost you, like,
[13:56] Speaker 3: you know, a complete pittance. You know, you'll have a
[14:00] Speaker 3: good time. You should go. So I sort of said, yeah, right, oh,
[14:05] Speaker 3: And so we'd spent an hour off the bus, you know,
[14:07] Speaker 3: had a quick swim in the pool, and then we
[14:10] Speaker 3: piled back onto the bus. So there were eighteen of us.
[14:12] Speaker 3: There were sixteen parents, so I believe it was eight couples,
[14:17] Speaker 3: eight sets of parents, and then Alita and myself and yeah,
[14:21] Speaker 3: and we headed off to gimber I've.
[14:23] Speaker 2: Been to Gimberan a few times.
[14:25] Speaker 1: I want to kind of paint the picture for those
[14:26] Speaker 1: that haven't been, because it is a very unique experience.
[14:29] Speaker 1: It's dozens of restaurants with all of the seating basically
[14:35] Speaker 1: is on the beach, all on the sand, rows and
[14:37] Speaker 1: rows and rows of chairs, and of an evening on sunset,
[14:40] Speaker 1: it is packed. Yes, there are so many people there.
[14:45] Speaker 1: What do you remember from because I've been recently, I
[14:48] Speaker 1: haven't been like you went twenty years ago. Was it
[14:51] Speaker 1: the same vibe then.
[14:52] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, dozens and dozens of restaurants, but because everything
[14:56] Speaker 3: is on the beach, it's like it's just the one
[14:59] Speaker 3: big restaurant.
[15:00] Speaker 2: That's what it feels like.
[15:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost like a wedding or a party because
[15:03] Speaker 1: it's just everyone open air eating like our fresco dining. Yes,
[15:07] Speaker 1: like prawns and like fresh seafood, and like beautiful food,
[15:12] Speaker 1: very cheap, lots of Bin Tang's beautiful sunset on that side. Probably,
[15:18] Speaker 1: if I'm right, like, a, is it like a half
[15:20] Speaker 1: hour drive from where you were staying.
[15:21] Speaker 3: That sounds right, Yeah, it's not that far, but it's
[15:24] Speaker 3: not that far.
[15:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, you're sitting there.
[15:27] Speaker 1: Do you remember the final moments before everything happened? Do
[15:30] Speaker 1: you remember what you were doing? Did you have a meal?
[15:32] Speaker 1: Were you having a drink?
[15:33] Speaker 3: So we arrived and we sat down, and there was
[15:41] Speaker 3: a bit of a Okay, who's going to see it where?
[15:43] Speaker 3: Because the direction you're facing determined whether you would be
[15:47] Speaker 3: looking at the sunset where you'd have to turn around
[15:49] Speaker 3: and look over your shoulder at the sunset. And I
[15:52] Speaker 3: was one of the suckers who was turning around and
[15:53] Speaker 3: looking over at the sunset.
[15:55] Speaker 2: You were the boy.
[15:56] Speaker 3: I was the boy. Yes, I was put in my
[15:57] Speaker 3: place and that was where I was to sit for
[16:00] Speaker 3: the evening. We ordered our food and it just took
[16:05] Speaker 3: a really long time for it to come, and it
[16:10] Speaker 3: just it didn't really register at the time. But like
[16:13] Speaker 3: in Bali, food comes.
[16:15] Speaker 2: Quick, especially there because it's all very fresh.
[16:17] Speaker 3: Yes, So there has always been a bit of conjecture
[16:22] Speaker 3: as to, well, why did it take so long? Why?
[16:25] Speaker 3: Like who knew what? And why I wasn't there the
[16:30] Speaker 3: food brought out swiftly, and initially I sort of had
[16:34] Speaker 3: those same I guess questions, and I don't have an
[16:40] Speaker 3: answer to them anymore except to sort of work it
[16:42] Speaker 3: through in my mind. And in my head, I'm like,
[16:45] Speaker 3: if I was waiting tables and I knew someone was
[16:50] Speaker 3: going to strike my restaurant with a bomb, I'd call
[16:56] Speaker 3: him sick. Yeah, I'm not going to be like.
[16:58] Speaker 2: Hmm, I'll just wait back here, way back.
[17:00] Speaker 3: Here, and eventually bring them their food, like maybe I'll
[17:03] Speaker 3: be able to vibe out when disaster is going to strike.
[17:06] Speaker 3: So I don't know why, but it's always been sort
[17:09] Speaker 3: of discussed as to so who knew what and why
[17:11] Speaker 3: did it take so long, and hey, look, maybe it
[17:14] Speaker 3: was just because there were eighteen of us and it
[17:16] Speaker 3: took longer to cook it, or you know, they ran
[17:18] Speaker 3: out of prawns and had to run next door and
[17:20] Speaker 3: grab some speares. Like I'm inclined to have a bit
[17:24] Speaker 3: more faith in humanity on that one. Yeah, but I
[17:26] Speaker 3: can understand why people don't.
[17:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, because you guys were on the final table of
[17:31] Speaker 1: the big group, weren't you.
[17:33] Speaker 3: We were towards the end. I don't think we were
[17:34] Speaker 3: the very very last table, but we were sat towards
[17:37] Speaker 3: the southern end of the big group of tables. There
[17:39] Speaker 3: might have been a handful of tables further to the
[17:41] Speaker 3: south of us. And yeah, so we'd ordered drinks and
[17:47] Speaker 3: a second round of drinks, so there were all these
[17:50] Speaker 3: like bottles and glasses on the table, which would prove
[17:55] Speaker 3: consequential because yeah, I had thought for a long time
[18:02] Speaker 3: afterwards that there had been glass in the bombs, that
[18:06] Speaker 3: they used broken glass as a form of shrapnel, which
[18:09] Speaker 3: people do, yes, But it turned out it had actually
[18:12] Speaker 3: been that there had been this glass on our table.
[18:14] Speaker 3: So when the bomb went off, it all shattered and
[18:17] Speaker 3: came out, and that was what had caused a lot
[18:20] Speaker 3: of the mayhem as well, was right, Yeah, glass from
[18:23] Speaker 3: the actual from the table, rather than it having been
[18:25] Speaker 3: a part of the bomb.
[18:27] Speaker 1: Interesting, So the first bomb was actually nowhere near you guys.
[18:31] Speaker 1: It was on the other end, yes, And that happened
[18:34] Speaker 1: at about six fifty.
[18:36] Speaker 3: The exact timing of it all is a bit of
[18:38] Speaker 3: a blur. The sun had set, is all I recall,
[18:43] Speaker 3: and this just this bang went off to the left
[18:47] Speaker 3: of where I was sitting, and it was the loudest
[18:50] Speaker 3: bang I'd ever heard in my life to that point,
[18:53] Speaker 3: and it just sent the beach into chaos. People just
[18:59] Speaker 3: you know, renting away, screaming. And Alita, who had been
[19:05] Speaker 3: sat i believe, sort of off to my left but
[19:08] Speaker 3: on the other side of the table, had got up
[19:11] Speaker 3: and she'd run and her mother, Julia, got up and
[19:14] Speaker 3: ran after her. And part of me was like, well,
[19:19] Speaker 3: that's the thing to do, get up and get out
[19:21] Speaker 3: of here. But this other part of me was like, yeah,
[19:26] Speaker 3: but like, people are going to think you're scared. And
[19:29] Speaker 3: imagine if people think you're scared in this most scary situation.
[19:34] Speaker 3: Imagine imagine if you're scared at this most scary thing
[19:37] Speaker 3: you've ever been in your life, and so I just
[19:40] Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, don't don't embarrass yourself by running away.
[19:44] Speaker 2: Because a leader and her mum are running, but the
[19:45] Speaker 2: rest of your table isn't.
[19:46] Speaker 3: No, So someone at the table said, look, just stay calm.
[19:52] Speaker 3: I think it might have been a gas bottle exploding.
[19:54] Speaker 3: And I think there's an undeniable logic to that of
[19:59] Speaker 3: just like, we don't know what this is, and it's
[20:01] Speaker 3: rare that panicking is going to be the right response
[20:04] Speaker 3: in any situation. So as long as we don't know
[20:06] Speaker 3: what happened and people are running around, you know, in
[20:09] Speaker 3: this mayhem, we're going to get lost, we're going to
[20:11] Speaker 3: get separated. You know, things will get worse. You know,
[20:14] Speaker 3: that's a lot of things to project onto a person
[20:16] Speaker 3: who's just said sort of a single sentence. But I
[20:18] Speaker 3: can see what the logic was in saying that, and
[20:21] Speaker 3: so most people just sort of stayed where they were.
[20:24] Speaker 3: Jenny Pillar, who was sitting further up the table, went
[20:27] Speaker 3: to get under the table, and her husband was sort
[20:30] Speaker 3: of like, no, come on, we'll be all right. I
[20:33] Speaker 3: stood up and I got up and I was just
[20:35] Speaker 3: grabbing the back of my chair, just sort of grasping
[20:37] Speaker 3: onto it, and I just sort of thought, if something
[20:41] Speaker 3: else happens, at least I'm on my feet, I can
[20:44] Speaker 3: run away. Yeah, and knowing what I know now, and
[20:48] Speaker 3: I mean, you know what I was to find out,
[20:49] Speaker 3: but even like I was in the nightclubs on the
[20:52] Speaker 3: nights previous and I was always like, you know, if
[20:56] Speaker 3: another bomb happens, I'm at least aware, so I'll be
[21:00] Speaker 3: able to run away. And like, I've since looked into
[21:04] Speaker 3: what happened in bali Wan and it was like a
[21:06] Speaker 3: metric ton of TNT. You're like, yeah, you don't outrun that.
[21:11] Speaker 3: I'm not a very fast runner.
[21:12] Speaker 1: Because you probably thought it was more likely to happen
[21:14] Speaker 1: then when you were out partying, because the first bombings.
[21:17] Speaker 2: Were at nightclubs, absolutely.
[21:19] Speaker 1: So you would have been more on your like worried
[21:21] Speaker 1: then than you were dining on a beach.
[21:24] Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's not there's no reason to do what happened,
[21:30] Speaker 3: but you can almost sort of work through the logic
[21:33] Speaker 3: of bombing a nightclub is sort of like, Okay, you've
[21:37] Speaker 3: come to this country and this is not the way
[21:40] Speaker 3: that we behave. You're bringing this sort of you know,
[21:43] Speaker 3: in the lawn country yeah, that we don't appreciate, and
[21:46] Speaker 3: so I don't that's not to say that obviously I
[21:51] Speaker 3: don't condone it in any way, but you can almost
[21:54] Speaker 3: work out what the logic is there sitting down and
[21:57] Speaker 3: eating dinner, like this is the safest place to be, right,
[22:01] Speaker 3: Like you're in an open air and you're just doing
[22:03] Speaker 3: a thing that is completely like who is offended by
[22:05] Speaker 3: eating a meal?
[22:06] Speaker 1: And lots of Indonesians go there too, yes, because it's
[22:09] Speaker 1: not just a tourist spot.
[22:10] Speaker 2: It's also a very popular local spot.
[22:13] Speaker 3: Yes. And you know who do you think works there?
[22:16] Speaker 3: It's just local people, you know, waiters and cooks and cleaners,
[22:20] Speaker 3: and everybody that's working there is Indonesian. Like, this is
[22:24] Speaker 3: going to be the safest place. So as I say,
[22:27] Speaker 3: I sort of was standing up and gripping onto my chair,
[22:29] Speaker 3: and I was looking up to the left because that's
[22:32] Speaker 3: where the first bomb had gone off, and so logically
[22:34] Speaker 3: you're like, well, that's where the action happened. And I
[22:38] Speaker 3: was a bit scared, or a lot scared, and a
[22:42] Speaker 3: little bit a little part of me was sort of
[22:44] Speaker 3: like wow, like this is a moment of history, Like
[22:49] Speaker 3: and I'm going to be able to tell my friends like, hey,
[22:52] Speaker 3: I was there when that one bomb went off in
[22:54] Speaker 3: Balley and my mom. My mom has like this amazing
[22:59] Speaker 3: story when she was traveling in through Europe as a
[23:03] Speaker 3: you know, it must have been I can't remember the
[23:05] Speaker 3: exact year, but she had been in the Vatican City
[23:08] Speaker 3: when Pope John Paul was shot. Wow, so I you know,
[23:13] Speaker 3: she remembered she just heard, you know, a bang and
[23:15] Speaker 3: people screaming and running and you know they had left.
[23:18] Speaker 3: And I remember sort of being like, oh, this is
[23:20] Speaker 3: my moment that I'll be able to tell my kids
[23:23] Speaker 3: like Mum told me you know I was there when
[23:24] Speaker 3: the pope was shot and yeah, yeah, like you heard
[23:28] Speaker 3: a thing, we saw it. It's you know, wild, and
[23:31] Speaker 3: so I did. I sort of had, you know, a
[23:32] Speaker 3: little like self indulgent moment of oh my gosh, like
[23:36] Speaker 3: what a great story I'm meant to be able to tell,
[23:38] Speaker 3: and and then I was just face down in the
[23:42] Speaker 3: sand and there wasn't a moment of like it just
[23:46] Speaker 3: it just happened. And I think the way I describe
[23:49] Speaker 3: it in the podcast is that it's like the movie
[23:51] Speaker 3: skip to frame. I was just I was there. I
[23:54] Speaker 3: was holding the back of my chair, and then I
[23:57] Speaker 3: was in the sand and there was no moment of
[23:59] Speaker 3: falling down or noticing myself, nothing like that. It wasn't
[24:04] Speaker 3: it didn't go bang it went because my ears were
[24:08] Speaker 3: just blasted out. I lost both both of your drums
[24:11] Speaker 3: blew out, and I was like so wedged into the sand.
[24:15] Speaker 3: It felt like I was like in it, not on it.
[24:18] Speaker 3: And at that point, you know, any question of it
[24:22] Speaker 3: perhaps having been a barbecue obviously gone. The gas bottle
[24:26] Speaker 3: theory was obliterated at that point, and I just had
[24:30] Speaker 3: a flash in my mind just this visual image of
[24:33] Speaker 3: the Sari Club, and that image of the Sari Club,
[24:36] Speaker 3: certainly for you know Australians at that stage, is this
[24:40] Speaker 3: indelible image of a building on fire. And those flames
[24:45] Speaker 3: were just such a I don't know, and it was
[24:48] Speaker 3: almost a visceral sort of sight. And I saw that
[24:53] Speaker 3: and I felt my legs on fire, and I just went, oh, bomb,
[24:58] Speaker 3: like in the Sari Club. My legs are on fire.
[25:00] Speaker 3: And I got up and I pulled my shorts off
[25:03] Speaker 3: and I ran into the water and I got to
[25:08] Speaker 3: the water and sort of sussed my surroundings out and
[25:11] Speaker 3: was like, okay, I'm in the water. There's a lot
[25:13] Speaker 3: of people in the water, and I guess we all
[25:15] Speaker 3: sort of thought a bomb can't go off in the water.
[25:18] Speaker 3: It needs a flame, you know, to ignite. So this
[25:22] Speaker 3: is going to be the safest place. And I look
[25:25] Speaker 3: back and sort of assessed the scene, and it became
[25:28] Speaker 3: abundantly clear that there was no fire and that I
[25:31] Speaker 3: had never been on fire, and so I.
[25:33] Speaker 2: Was just what was it? What was the pain?
[25:35] Speaker 3: It was sand blast, So the bomb had gone off,
[25:39] Speaker 3: and the sand obviously just goes spraying out, and it
[25:42] Speaker 3: had whipped my legs. So I'd been burned, but it
[25:45] Speaker 3: was friction burned from all of this sand whipping past
[25:48] Speaker 3: my legs rather than actual heat burns from flames. And
[25:53] Speaker 3: I was I'd been wearing like a button up shirt
[25:57] Speaker 3: and it had just been totaled from the bomb, and
[26:00] Speaker 3: so I'm wearing this like half of a shirt and
[26:03] Speaker 3: just a pair of like I hadn't graduated to big
[26:05] Speaker 3: boy undies either, so I was wearing these like little
[26:08] Speaker 3: like black, tidy whitey things and that was me. And
[26:11] Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, this is the worst situation I've ever
[26:14] Speaker 3: been in. And I am half naked. This is this
[26:18] Speaker 3: is not the ideal outfit for what is to.
[26:21] Speaker 2: Were you bleeding? Like what were your injuries?
[26:24] Speaker 3: It was like I'd been wounded and it had immediately coulterized,
[26:28] Speaker 3: So there's like blood had like there's I've got the
[26:32] Speaker 3: clothes back from the AFP eventually, and I was wearing,
[26:35] Speaker 3: of course a Bintang singlet and there's like blood on it,
[26:39] Speaker 3: but I wasn't bleeding from it. And it completely miraculously
[26:45] Speaker 3: and like I will never understand how I had not
[26:50] Speaker 3: been hit by any trap or whatsoever. So it completely
[26:54] Speaker 3: bypassed me. And as I was to find out in
[26:59] Speaker 3: the the weeks and months later, was that basically I'd
[27:03] Speaker 3: been standing so close or the bomber had been standing
[27:06] Speaker 3: so close to me that when the bomb went off,
[27:09] Speaker 3: the initial shock wave hit me and knocked me to
[27:12] Speaker 3: the ground, and then the shrapnel came out and it
[27:17] Speaker 3: hit the people around me. But my proximity to the
[27:20] Speaker 3: bomber was what saved me and meant that I came
[27:24] Speaker 3: out of it with messed up ears, but otherwise, you know,
[27:28] Speaker 3: physically miraculously okay, because.
[27:31] Speaker 2: You were kind of in the blind spot almost.
[27:33] Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, And speaking to the AFP officer who led
[27:41] Speaker 3: the investigation into it, David Craig. He said that the
[27:44] Speaker 3: way that they would were planned was basically that the
[27:47] Speaker 3: bombers would work out who their targets were and then
[27:51] Speaker 3: would turn to face the backpack at the target, and
[27:55] Speaker 3: then their body would act as the wave determine that
[28:00] Speaker 3: the blast would go away from them. And so it
[28:04] Speaker 3: would seem that the bomber has turned and faced me,
[28:08] Speaker 3: and then the bomb's gone off and the shrapnel has
[28:13] Speaker 3: ripped him apart. But in the moment that the shock
[28:16] Speaker 3: wave has gone through him, it's hit me, and as
[28:19] Speaker 3: his body has held back the shrapnel for that split second,
[28:22] Speaker 3: I've hit the dirt and then it's come out and
[28:26] Speaker 3: gone into you know, the rest of the people and
[28:29] Speaker 3: the surrounds.
[28:30] Speaker 2: You are so lucky to be alive, Like, wow, yeah,
[28:36] Speaker 2: I heard you say that it's possible that the last
[28:39] Speaker 2: thing that bomber saw was you.
[28:41] Speaker 3: I think about that man less these days, because I've
[28:44] Speaker 3: obviously been on a bit of a journey to work
[28:47] Speaker 3: him out. And that's a fool's errand but you spend
[28:52] Speaker 3: a lot of time grappling with it, and then you
[28:53] Speaker 3: start to, you know, find some concrete evidence out about it.
[28:57] Speaker 3: You know, I didn't know his name for a very
[28:59] Speaker 3: very long time time. And so to sort of put
[29:01] Speaker 3: these things in place, you find some things out, and Yeah,
[29:04] Speaker 3: the conclusion that I've reached, or the theory that I've got,
[29:08] Speaker 3: is that, yeah, that if he's turned and faced me
[29:10] Speaker 3: and then blown it up, then there's a pretty good
[29:13] Speaker 3: chance the last thing he saw was me, you know,
[29:16] Speaker 3: this bloke who was maybe two or three years younger
[29:19] Speaker 3: than him, and I don't know.
[29:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to get to him and the other
[29:24] Speaker 2: bombers a bit later. Sure, but let's kind of pick up.
[29:28] Speaker 2: You're in the water, you're half naked, You've realized what's
[29:31] Speaker 2: going on when you look back? What do you see
[29:35] Speaker 2: at the beach? Or is everyone in the water? Where
[29:37] Speaker 2: is everyone?
[29:38] Speaker 3: I don't remember anyone walking. Put it like that, you're
[29:41] Speaker 3: either standing still or running, and I it's finny. I
[29:47] Speaker 3: also I remembered it being you know, lit up, and
[29:52] Speaker 3: then it just being pitch black. And what I've learned
[29:56] Speaker 3: afterwards is that the bombs had shut circuited, because I
[30:00] Speaker 3: don't think it was the lights. There are probably on
[30:03] Speaker 3: generators or something like that, and they've it's cut the lights.
[30:07] Speaker 3: So I had this thing for years of being like
[30:10] Speaker 3: it must just been my memory playing tricks on me
[30:12] Speaker 3: that it's gone from being light to being dark, because
[30:15] Speaker 3: in my mind, I'm like, oh, the sun hadn't set,
[30:17] Speaker 3: and then the bomb went off and suddenly the sun
[30:19] Speaker 3: was set. Like that doesn't make sense. Someone explained to me. No, no,
[30:22] Speaker 3: the generators have cut and the lights have gone out,
[30:24] Speaker 3: and that's why it was suddenly pitch black, right, so
[30:27] Speaker 3: you could sort of see, you know, pitch black isn't
[30:29] Speaker 3: the right word, but it's suddenly got very dark and
[30:32] Speaker 3: people are running, and I was sort of just like,
[30:35] Speaker 3: all right, I'm in the water. What do I do now?
[30:38] Speaker 3: And I had no idea where anyone that I had
[30:40] Speaker 3: come with had gone, and so I just screamed the
[30:45] Speaker 3: first name that came into my mind, and that was
[30:47] Speaker 3: a leader, And so the letter washers are like best
[30:53] Speaker 3: family friends. Dad and deep Mar have known each other
[30:56] Speaker 3: since Deet said it was like nineteen sixty six, I
[30:59] Speaker 3: think when they first met. And then Mum and Julia
[31:02] Speaker 3: had traveled together. They'd been together in Vatican City, so
[31:06] Speaker 3: they'd traveled together as sort of, you know, in their
[31:09] Speaker 3: early twenties. And then their kids are sort of the
[31:13] Speaker 3: same age as us, so we've all grown up together.
[31:15] Speaker 3: And so the person that I was most concerned for
[31:19] Speaker 3: was a leader, and I started yelling her name, and
[31:24] Speaker 3: eventually I heard this other voice yelling a leader's name,
[31:29] Speaker 3: and I sort of scanned the crowd and I could
[31:31] Speaker 3: see deep Mae, her dad, and I went sort of
[31:35] Speaker 3: running up through the water to him, and he grabbed
[31:38] Speaker 3: me and we hugged and just said those bastards, and
[31:42] Speaker 3: I was like, yep, that year and then and then
[31:49] Speaker 3: we started looking for Julia and a leader.
[31:52] Speaker 2: And you've described the next hour of your life as
[31:55] Speaker 2: the scariest hour of your life. Yeah, thankfully with someone. Yeah,
[32:03] Speaker 2: it was the next hour. What did that even look like?
[32:06] Speaker 3: We needed to find Julia and Alida. That was our
[32:08] Speaker 3: primary concern, obviously, die Mar's wife and daughter. And you know,
[32:14] Speaker 3: we knew that they'd run to the south, so we
[32:17] Speaker 3: started going in that direction, and then we sort of
[32:23] Speaker 3: walked as far south as it made sense to do,
[32:25] Speaker 3: and then it was just like, they're not here. This
[32:27] Speaker 3: is just an empty sand in front of us. So
[32:29] Speaker 3: we turned around and came back and by this stage,
[32:32] Speaker 3: those hundreds of people that had been on the beach
[32:34] Speaker 3: were gone. It was just empty and it was just
[32:37] Speaker 3: decimated tables and turned up chairs and that sort of thing.
[32:41] Speaker 3: And we tried to work out what the next logical
[32:44] Speaker 3: steps would be, and we thought, well, why don't we
[32:47] Speaker 3: go back to the car park because that's where the
[32:49] Speaker 3: bus is and maybe people have gone back to the bus,
[32:52] Speaker 3: and you know, we'll head back from there. We went
[32:55] Speaker 3: up to the car park and there was just this
[33:00] Speaker 3: powder kick. There was just this huge group of Indonesian
[33:06] Speaker 3: people squared off at one another and they were having
[33:09] Speaker 3: it out in I assume in Bahasa, and we were
[33:13] Speaker 3: just sort of looking and it was just this so
[33:15] Speaker 3: tense like there are people just sort of screaming at
[33:18] Speaker 3: each other, and I look, I have no idea. I
[33:20] Speaker 3: have no idea what they were saying. But in my mind,
[33:23] Speaker 3: I suppose it was good versus this is a terrible
[33:26] Speaker 3: thing that's happened, you know, like we support it, we don't.
[33:30] Speaker 3: That was what went into my mind, as I say,
[33:32] Speaker 3: that's just me making it up based on what had
[33:35] Speaker 3: he immediately preceded it. But I don't know what words
[33:37] Speaker 3: were being said. And I just remember scanning the crowd
[33:41] Speaker 3: and being like everyone here is Indonesian except for Dietmar
[33:47] Speaker 3: and I, and people are pretty angry at the moment.
[33:51] Speaker 3: And I just turned to det and I went, I
[33:52] Speaker 3: think we need to get out of here, and he
[33:54] Speaker 3: was like yep. And it was like, okay, the bus
[33:57] Speaker 3: is not an option. We need to get out of
[33:58] Speaker 3: the car park. So we went back to onto the
[34:01] Speaker 3: beach and thought, well, look we went that way. I
[34:04] Speaker 3: guess now we just go in the other direction. Maybe
[34:06] Speaker 3: that's where people are. And we had no idea what
[34:10] Speaker 3: had happened, so in you know, it would be the
[34:13] Speaker 3: following days where we found out that they had been
[34:15] Speaker 3: suicide bombers. I was just completely naive as to what
[34:23] Speaker 3: terrorism was. You know, this is you know, two thousand
[34:27] Speaker 3: and five. Basically, I was like, terrorists are the bad
[34:31] Speaker 3: guys in Harrison Ford movies. And what they do is
[34:33] Speaker 3: they take people hostage and they negotiate for things, and
[34:36] Speaker 3: you never negotiate with terrorists. That's everything I knew about terrorism.
[34:41] Speaker 3: Now nine to eleven had changed what you know, Western
[34:45] Speaker 3: understanding of terrorism was. It wasn't you know about you know,
[34:48] Speaker 3: negotiating for something else. It was no, you strike terror,
[34:51] Speaker 3: that's you know, it's done. It's a contained thing. The
[34:55] Speaker 3: outcome is that you're scared, not that we get something
[34:57] Speaker 3: else out of it. But at that stage I had
[35:00] Speaker 3: idea that that was what it was, and the concept
[35:03] Speaker 3: of a suicide bomber that was completely foreign to me.
[35:06] Speaker 3: It made no sense, like, why would you even do that?
[35:08] Speaker 2: How does someone get to that point to want to
[35:10] Speaker 2: do that?
[35:10] Speaker 3: And what's the point, like you would there are hundreds
[35:13] Speaker 3: of people on a beach, just hide the bomb in
[35:16] Speaker 3: the sand and then blow it up. So that was
[35:18] Speaker 3: what I had thought had happened. And I was like, okay,
[35:21] Speaker 3: so a bomb's just gone off under our table and
[35:25] Speaker 3: we now need to walk through this sea of tables
[35:28] Speaker 3: and I was just like, oh, any one of these
[35:32] Speaker 3: is another bomb? And is this is this like a
[35:35] Speaker 3: minefield situation where a step is what's going to set
[35:39] Speaker 3: it off? And just walking through those tables was just
[35:43] Speaker 3: the height of fear throughout that whole situation. And it's
[35:47] Speaker 3: funny to look back on now because you know that
[35:51] Speaker 3: all the danger that you were in had finished. After
[35:55] Speaker 3: that second bomb had gone off, It was all done.
[35:57] Speaker 3: We were fine. But that wasn't the skin very part.
[36:00] Speaker 3: The scary part was afterwards, when logically now, I know,
[36:03] Speaker 3: anticipating yeah, and so it's just walking through these tables,
[36:07] Speaker 3: just thinking, all right, which one is going to be
[36:09] Speaker 3: the bomb that goes off and finishes the job. But
[36:13] Speaker 3: we managed to get through them, and we just continued
[36:17] Speaker 3: walking north and again it was just through on empty sand.
[36:21] Speaker 3: There was nothing in front of us, and eventually we
[36:23] Speaker 3: came upon a hotel complex up off the sand to
[36:29] Speaker 3: our right, and we just sort of thought, well, that's
[36:32] Speaker 3: the next logical place someone would have gone, so we
[36:35] Speaker 3: wanted up there.
[36:36] Speaker 2: You found yourself to the hotel because to explain Jim
[36:38] Speaker 2: Beran Beach, it is this big stretch of beach, but
[36:40] Speaker 2: then it's got kind of fancy hotels kind of bordering it,
[36:45] Speaker 2: so there's a bunch of them. So I'm imagining that
[36:47] Speaker 2: a lot of these people went through the different hotels,
[36:49] Speaker 2: which is what you later found out happened. And what
[36:51] Speaker 2: Alita did.
[36:52] Speaker 3: I always get it confused as to which one is which.
[36:55] Speaker 3: There's the four seasons and the Intercontinental, and one is
[36:59] Speaker 3: to the south than one is to the north, and
[37:01] Speaker 3: a leader had gone to the one to the south,
[37:03] Speaker 3: and I guess we'd walked just focused on the sand
[37:07] Speaker 3: and we'd not seen or noticed that there had been
[37:10] Speaker 3: a hotel to the south, and we'd gone in the
[37:13] Speaker 3: other direction to the north and had ended up in
[37:17] Speaker 3: that hotel. And I think anyone who had gone had
[37:20] Speaker 3: run south and had gone into that hotel where a
[37:22] Speaker 3: leader and Julia had gone, and it had its own
[37:25] Speaker 3: medical facilities, so not to handle what had happened, but
[37:29] Speaker 3: at least it was sort of equipped to start to,
[37:33] Speaker 3: I guess, triage people and do some initial first aid
[37:35] Speaker 3: and then get people out to better equipped places to
[37:39] Speaker 3: deal with them. We'd headed north and ended up at
[37:42] Speaker 3: this other hotel, which was far enough away that no
[37:44] Speaker 3: one else had gone there. So we walked up into
[37:47] Speaker 3: this hotel complex and yeah, and Diemar had said to me,
[37:51] Speaker 3: you know, we go walking into it, and he looked
[37:54] Speaker 3: at me, and I've just got, you know, basically no
[37:57] Speaker 3: shirt and a pair of undies and mahars all over
[38:00] Speaker 3: the place, and he went Tohey, they're going to get
[38:02] Speaker 3: the wrong idea about what you and I have been
[38:04] Speaker 3: up to. And we laughed, and we went in and
[38:09] Speaker 3: sort of told them what had happened, and they were stunned,
[38:13] Speaker 3: absolutely shocked.
[38:13] Speaker 2: Wouldn't they have heard it?
[38:15] Speaker 3: That's what I thought. But I guess again, maybe they
[38:16] Speaker 3: were just like all right, gas bottles, fireworks or something. Yeah,
[38:21] Speaker 3: but I guess, but no one else had come in
[38:25] Speaker 3: to tell them, so for whatever they thought it might
[38:27] Speaker 3: have been, we were confirmation, which to us was confirmation
[38:30] Speaker 3: that other none of the rest of our group are
[38:32] Speaker 3: here or have even made their way through here. We thought,
[38:35] Speaker 3: all right, well, if no one's here, maybe they are
[38:37] Speaker 3: back at the car park. We've tried to do it through.
[38:42] Speaker 3: You know, the direct means maybe someone is sort of
[38:44] Speaker 3: on the road on the way back. So we went
[38:46] Speaker 3: to walk along the road back towards the car park
[38:49] Speaker 3: at that stage, and that's when we saw that, you know,
[38:54] Speaker 3: the authorities had kicked into gear, and I guess it
[38:57] Speaker 3: was the military because they were, you know, we're wearing
[39:00] Speaker 3: that sort of khaki sort of uniform and had the
[39:04] Speaker 3: kind of guns like big assault rifles, and the roads
[39:09] Speaker 3: were closed off, and we got to a closed off
[39:11] Speaker 3: road and sort of tried to say to a guy like, hey,
[39:13] Speaker 3: we just want to get through to the car park.
[39:15] Speaker 3: We've just been in this bombing and we want to
[39:17] Speaker 3: know where people are, and he was having none of it,
[39:19] Speaker 3: just wasn't letting us through, and a logo Balinese man
[39:24] Speaker 3: sort of came up to him and translated for us
[39:26] Speaker 3: and then sort of said to us, look, he's he's
[39:29] Speaker 3: not letting you through. No one's allowed through. Why don't
[39:32] Speaker 3: you come to my place. We'll get you a drink,
[39:35] Speaker 3: get you cleaned up, and we'll work out what to
[39:37] Speaker 3: do next. It was so kind and comes back to
[39:42] Speaker 3: this again. He was a boy, and like it's silly,
[39:46] Speaker 3: but like I look at it now. We got to
[39:48] Speaker 3: his house and you know, he's married, he's got two
[39:50] Speaker 3: little kids. He was a couple of years older than me,
[39:52] Speaker 3: you know, like he was he was such a young
[39:55] Speaker 3: man with a young wife and a young family. And
[39:58] Speaker 3: I remember him having us into his home and them
[40:03] Speaker 3: getting us, you know, bottled water, and his wife sort
[40:07] Speaker 3: of being like what's happened? And we told her and
[40:09] Speaker 3: she just burst into tears, and I was like, yeah,
[40:13] Speaker 3: you poor thing, like you know, this is block from
[40:15] Speaker 3: your home, like your home has been ruined, like like obviously,
[40:18] Speaker 3: this is why you're crying. And she just cried because
[40:21] Speaker 3: she was so sorry for us and what had happened
[40:24] Speaker 3: to us, and she was just so apologetic and you know,
[40:27] Speaker 3: these two little girls came up and they were really upset,
[40:29] Speaker 3: and it was just the most devastating scene, and that
[40:32] Speaker 3: their first inclination was obviously, you've come to our country
[40:37] Speaker 3: and this has happened to you. And I guess the
[40:39] Speaker 3: guilt and the shame and the sorrow that they felt
[40:43] Speaker 3: that this had happened to us, you know, guests in
[40:45] Speaker 3: their home. It was really it was really touching and
[40:48] Speaker 3: really heartening. And then at some point while we were
[40:52] Speaker 3: in his home, the radio was playing and he said
[40:56] Speaker 3: to us, wait, were you in a bombing in Cuda?
[41:01] Speaker 3: And we said no, we on Gimber and like just
[41:05] Speaker 3: over there. And he's like, oh, well, the radio said
[41:08] Speaker 3: there's been a bombing in Cuter, and we sort of like, well,
[41:12] Speaker 3: that's where the rest of the family are, that's where
[41:15] Speaker 3: all staying in Cuda, that's where everybody else is. Whatever's
[41:20] Speaker 3: happened here. I think we've sort of come to the
[41:22] Speaker 3: conclusion we can't do anything else here now, no one
[41:24] Speaker 3: else is going to come to us. We need to
[41:26] Speaker 3: get back. And so my memory is it was a taxi,
[41:30] Speaker 3: although when I checked with De Mar he's like, I
[41:32] Speaker 3: don't know, mate, I didn't pay, so might have been
[41:36] Speaker 3: a car I don't know, or maybe the taxi driver
[41:38] Speaker 3: just took pity on us. But we got in this
[41:40] Speaker 3: taxi and we drove into Kuda, and I just remember
[41:43] Speaker 3: it being a very lonely road ahead and that the
[41:46] Speaker 3: cars were just coming out of it, And on a
[41:49] Speaker 3: Saturday night in Cuda, that's not the way that traffic goes.
[41:52] Speaker 3: So it was like, Okay, there's definitely something has gone down.
[41:55] Speaker 2: Eerie experience this whole night. Yeah, so you got back
[42:00] Speaker 2: to the hotel. Everyone else was fine, Yes, what was
[42:04] Speaker 2: that reunion?
[42:05] Speaker 3: Like? I found out afterwards that there had been sort
[42:08] Speaker 3: of a mix of messages had been relayed to my family,
[42:12] Speaker 3: and you know, I think about it now. There's this
[42:15] Speaker 3: thing someone who'd explained to me recently how it's like
[42:17] Speaker 3: when you survive something like this, you sort of start
[42:20] Speaker 3: to think of the world in us and them and
[42:22] Speaker 3: us being people who survived and everyone else who wasn't
[42:25] Speaker 3: there and therefore didn't survive it and don't understand a
[42:29] Speaker 3: thing about what it is that you've been through. And
[42:32] Speaker 3: you get very much like that. And it's only been
[42:34] Speaker 3: in the last couple of years that you start to go, yeah,
[42:37] Speaker 3: but they survived something else as well. It's like, you know,
[42:40] Speaker 3: my brother was ten, my little sister was thirteen. These
[42:43] Speaker 3: children who thought their brother was dead and I wasn't.
[42:47] Speaker 3: It's fine, there's a happy ending, but there's this two
[42:50] Speaker 3: hour period where these little kids are going through this
[42:54] Speaker 3: complete unknown, and like, I couldn't imagine what that must
[42:58] Speaker 3: have been like for them and the ways that it
[42:59] Speaker 3: must have shaped their lives. So I just remember getting
[43:03] Speaker 3: out of the taxi and my little brothers and sisters
[43:06] Speaker 3: sort of swamping me tears and hugs and mum, you know,
[43:10] Speaker 3: hugging me. And then Dad came up last, sort of
[43:13] Speaker 3: let everyone else do their thing, and then he hugged
[43:16] Speaker 3: me and he hugged deep mah, and he said, oh,
[43:18] Speaker 3: thank god, you're all right. And look it may not
[43:21] Speaker 3: have been the exact taxi, but he was straight then
[43:24] Speaker 3: into a car to go off to hospital because Dad's
[43:27] Speaker 3: a doctor and he just sort of thought I need
[43:31] Speaker 3: to help. So he as soon as DeMar and I
[43:34] Speaker 3: were okay, that was like, okay, thank God, now I
[43:38] Speaker 3: need to go do what I need to do.
[43:40] Speaker 2: Do you remember how that night ended.
[43:41] Speaker 3: It's been great going through it again with my parents.
[43:45] Speaker 3: Going through going through my statement to the AFP, and
[43:49] Speaker 3: because like, yeah, there's parts of it that I had
[43:53] Speaker 3: completely forgotten until you go through and you read actually
[43:56] Speaker 3: what occurred. And I was taken to a local medical
[44:01] Speaker 3: center and they gave me an X ray to see
[44:03] Speaker 3: if I had suffered any shrapnel wounds. And they said, yeah,
[44:08] Speaker 3: look he's he's riddled with shrapnel. And it turned out
[44:12] Speaker 3: they just had this really crappy old X ray machine.
[44:15] Speaker 3: Oh my god, I just had specs all through it.
[44:17] Speaker 3: And they we're like, yep, that's that's so. I mean,
[44:20] Speaker 3: god knows what he didn't. I didn't know I was
[44:22] Speaker 3: completely fine.
[44:23] Speaker 2: You weren't completely fine because you did need multiple surgeries
[44:26] Speaker 2: on your ears.
[44:27] Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, so they checked my ears and they're like, oh,
[44:29] Speaker 3: there's a problem here. And and I've also like I've
[44:35] Speaker 3: since learned this term the invisible wounded, and basically it's like, look,
[44:40] Speaker 3: you don't have any physical injuries, but like your head
[44:43] Speaker 3: is a mess, kid, and that that's a whole other thing.
[44:46] Speaker 3: But you know, for the time being, when when it's
[44:49] Speaker 3: you know, within the first twenty four to forty eight
[44:52] Speaker 3: first week, lives are at stake, and that's the most
[44:55] Speaker 3: important thing, and my life was not at stake. I
[44:57] Speaker 3: was fine in that regard. So we went and when
[45:01] Speaker 3: I came back, the hotel was still sort of buzzing,
[45:05] Speaker 3: and basically that there's this group of us and we
[45:08] Speaker 3: were watching different TVs and they would tune into different
[45:11] Speaker 3: channels so that people were getting different feeds and therefore
[45:16] Speaker 3: we're seeing different images, and over the course of the
[45:19] Speaker 3: night there was sort of this game of telephone of like, oh,
[45:22] Speaker 3: I've seen you know, the Scotts, I've seen the pillars,
[45:25] Speaker 3: I've seen the griffs, and people are sort of slowly
[45:28] Speaker 3: being accounted for, and through that there was just this
[45:32] Speaker 3: sort of situation and Dad, having been at the hospital,
[45:37] Speaker 3: he was able to call back and say, look, you know,
[45:40] Speaker 3: the following people are here, and they're accounted for and
[45:42] Speaker 3: they're okay. And it was the early hours of the
[45:46] Speaker 3: Sunday morning, maybe two or three AM. I remember going
[45:50] Speaker 3: to bed and there was this sort of like, oh,
[45:53] Speaker 3: between what we know from what Dad's seen and from
[45:55] Speaker 3: what we've seen on TV, I think everyone's accounted for
[45:59] Speaker 3: and everyone's okay, and just sort of going to bed
[46:03] Speaker 3: like oh, that was horrible, And at some point some
[46:09] Speaker 3: of the boys whose parents were missing, and I mean
[46:11] Speaker 3: that was all parents at this stage. If you'd been
[46:14] Speaker 3: to Gimber and only the Griffiths had come back, they'd
[46:17] Speaker 3: made their way back to the hotel, and but they
[46:20] Speaker 3: were sort of pretty badly cut from you know, the
[46:24] Speaker 3: the shrapnel and the glass. So they had then been
[46:26] Speaker 3: taken to hospital. So all those parents were in the
[46:30] Speaker 3: hospital and and I just remember the boys sort of
[46:35] Speaker 3: coming up at some stages saying, have you seen my
[46:38] Speaker 3: parentsski brothers? Well, I don't remember exactly who it was.
[46:42] Speaker 3: I don't think it was them. I think look who
[46:45] Speaker 3: it was exactly, I don't recall, because at this stage
[46:48] Speaker 3: there's eight sets of parents missing, yeah, you know, And
[46:54] Speaker 3: and they just said, look have you seen my parents?
[46:55] Speaker 3: Are they are okay? And I just said, look, I didn't.
[46:58] Speaker 3: I didn't see anyone. I don't know what's happened, but
[47:02] Speaker 3: look at me. I'm fine. These were a bunch of
[47:05] Speaker 3: pop gun terrorists. They've turned up with a bag of fireworks.
[47:08] Speaker 3: They've given us an almighty scare. But don't worry. Everyone
[47:12] Speaker 3: is going to be okay, Like this is going to
[47:15] Speaker 3: be a bad dream tomorrow. And it was what I believed.
[47:19] Speaker 2: Twenty people died.
[47:20] Speaker 1: We're not counting the bombers in that there were three
[47:22] Speaker 1: bombers as well, four Australians, three from your group. Yes,
[47:27] Speaker 1: when did you find out about their deaths?
[47:30] Speaker 3: The next day we went to the hospital. Dad had
[47:35] Speaker 3: called Mum and said, tell they call me Joseph. Tell
[47:41] Speaker 3: Joseph to get the passports and to come to the hospital.
[47:47] Speaker 3: So Deep Mar Dane Griffiths and I we got the
[47:52] Speaker 3: passports and we got the taxi to the hospital, to
[47:56] Speaker 3: Sanglar Hospital and we're right, and Dad took us through
[48:01] Speaker 3: to the ward where he sort of had all of
[48:03] Speaker 3: our group, and before we went in, we said, like,
[48:06] Speaker 3: what's going on? And he sort of rattled off all
[48:10] Speaker 3: of the injuries that people had sustained, and that put
[48:15] Speaker 3: things in perspective of like, oh, this is not this
[48:19] Speaker 3: is not a joke, This is not some you know,
[48:22] Speaker 3: you know, little fright tactic. This is really really serious.
[48:26] Speaker 3: And he concluded by telling us that Jennifer Williamson had died,
[48:31] Speaker 3: and you know, that was the sort of the gut punch.
[48:34] Speaker 3: And and we went into the to the ward and
[48:38] Speaker 3: made our way through and just sort of saw with
[48:41] Speaker 3: our own eyes just how badly banged up people were
[48:43] Speaker 3: and these life changing injuries that a lot of people
[48:47] Speaker 3: had sustained. And then later on that day someone came around,
[48:52] Speaker 3: a woman from the hotel who was trying to account
[48:56] Speaker 3: for people. And she came around and said, look, we've
[49:00] Speaker 3: got these lists, those who are deceased, those who are
[49:04] Speaker 3: here in hospital, and those who are still unaccounted for.
[49:08] Speaker 3: And we saw Jennifer Williams Williamson's name in the unaccounted
[49:12] Speaker 3: list and we said, she's she's deceased. And then we asked,
[49:16] Speaker 3: We said, so we still can't find Colin and Fiona
[49:20] Speaker 3: Swilinsky and she just pointed down and their names were
[49:23] Speaker 3: in the deceased Colin.
[49:24] Speaker 2: What a way to find out?
[49:26] Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah. You have.
[49:30] Speaker 2: For the podcast spoken to Isaac and Ben, Colin and
[49:35] Speaker 2: Fiona's kids. You've also spoken to the son, the father
[49:41] Speaker 2: of the other Australian that died. He was only sixteen.
[49:44] Speaker 2: What have those conversations been like, because obviously this is
[49:46] Speaker 2: all from your point of view, what's it been like
[49:48] Speaker 2: reliving all of that through their eyes?
[49:50] Speaker 3: I think when I started doing the podcast, I wanted
[49:54] Speaker 3: to know what drove the people who did it to
[49:59] Speaker 3: end their lives in the way that they did, and
[50:04] Speaker 3: then you speak to these people who lost the most
[50:08] Speaker 3: important people in their lives, and what drives you shifts
[50:15] Speaker 3: from being well, why did you do what you did
[50:18] Speaker 3: to end your life too? How do you continue to
[50:21] Speaker 3: live your life? And speaking to Terry Fitzgerald and to
[50:28] Speaker 3: Isaac and Benzolenski, I don't know, it becomes quite cliche
[50:34] Speaker 3: to say it's inspirational and that like it was, but
[50:38] Speaker 3: it just it doesn't like, it doesn't touch the sides
[50:41] Speaker 3: of the way it makes you feel and the way
[50:44] Speaker 3: that it changes you. And I think I'd been like,
[50:50] Speaker 3: fairly maybe stoic. I'd come to the podcast determined to
[50:57] Speaker 3: be studiedournalism. I've been a journalist, and I was like,
[51:02] Speaker 3: the way that I'm going to come at this is
[51:03] Speaker 3: as a journalist. I don't want to come in and
[51:06] Speaker 3: talk about feelings. I want to get to facts and
[51:11] Speaker 3: reality and what happened. And maintaining that element of detachment
[51:17] Speaker 3: was really helpful, and it also over the time that
[51:21] Speaker 3: it took me to do it, I think it really
[51:22] Speaker 3: helped me to sort some things out in my own
[51:24] Speaker 3: head without realizing that was what was happening. Yep. And
[51:27] Speaker 3: the only time I remember breaking down was after speaking
[51:31] Speaker 3: to Terry Fitzgerald. I think having kids of your own
[51:34] Speaker 3: shifts things and just the depth of the loss. And
[51:38] Speaker 3: I don't know the bravery and the fortitude to go on.
[51:43] Speaker 3: You know, you question your own abilities, and I don't
[51:47] Speaker 3: know the depth of what you're capable of. And to
[51:50] Speaker 3: see what other people can manage in the most horrific circumstances. Yeah, inspirational,
[51:56] Speaker 3: isn't It's not a big enough word.
[51:58] Speaker 2: Brendan was sixteen and he died in the Kouterer explosion,
[52:01] Speaker 2: so he wasn't part of your group. No, so that
[52:03] Speaker 2: story would have been completely new to you.
[52:05] Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, And it was The whole thing was
[52:09] Speaker 3: it was really really difficult to get answers. I thought
[52:16] Speaker 3: I would basically just sort of like, I'll call the
[52:21] Speaker 3: AFP and they'll be like, Joe, we've been waiting, so
[52:24] Speaker 3: Kiers what happened. That's not what happened at all. And
[52:30] Speaker 3: I can understand from their perspective being a little bit like, mate,
[52:36] Speaker 3: this happened nearly twenty years ago, Like what do you
[52:39] Speaker 3: mean you want to know answers? And basically I came
[52:45] Speaker 3: and asked a bunch of questions that they were sort
[52:48] Speaker 3: of not in a position to answer, and I was
[52:52] Speaker 3: told at one point they were like, look, it's an
[52:53] Speaker 3: ongoing investigation, and I'm like.
[52:55] Speaker 2: From two thousand and five, I don't know about that.
[52:57] Speaker 3: Hey, I feel like you've either got your answers by
[53:00] Speaker 3: now or you don't. And I really wanted to know,
[53:04] Speaker 3: and I wanted to know some nitty gritty stuff. You know.
[53:07] Speaker 3: I knew twenty people had died in three bombings, but
[53:09] Speaker 3: how many people had died in which bombings and when
[53:13] Speaker 3: had they occurred? Because I started to think, like, all right,
[53:15] Speaker 3: so what bombs went off when? And okay, was there
[53:21] Speaker 3: an intention from the two bombs that went off on
[53:24] Speaker 3: Gimber and that it was like, okay, bomb goes off here,
[53:27] Speaker 3: and then the second bomb goes off later because people
[53:30] Speaker 3: will run in that direction, and then it will maximize
[53:33] Speaker 3: the death and damage because more people will come towards it.
[53:36] Speaker 3: So just these like it may seem like small detail,
[53:40] Speaker 3: but to me they answered bigger questions and such detail
[53:44] Speaker 3: was not forthcoming, and I can, as I say, I
[53:46] Speaker 3: can understand. They also sort of said the ap were
[53:48] Speaker 3: like for us to give you some of the answers
[53:52] Speaker 3: that you're asking for. We need to go through these
[53:54] Speaker 3: twenty year old files from a time when things were
[53:57] Speaker 3: not digitized, and the amount of redaction that we're going
[54:01] Speaker 3: to have to do just to make it available to you,
[54:04] Speaker 3: because there's investigative and also, you know, the things that
[54:07] Speaker 3: the terrorists have done, just there's a bunch of things
[54:10] Speaker 3: that we can't tell you straight off the bat, because
[54:13] Speaker 3: that's just not the way that the world works. I
[54:16] Speaker 3: was very frustrated by that sort of response. And you know,
[54:20] Speaker 3: then luckily enough, I was able to find a bunch
[54:23] Speaker 3: of other people that were sort of the next rung down,
[54:25] Speaker 3: these you know, amazing university academics and people who worked
[54:30] Speaker 3: in like Indonesian thing tags and really worked on international terrorism.
[54:36] Speaker 3: And then finally speaking to David Craig, who led the investigation,
[54:41] Speaker 3: and he in his book had spoken to Terry Fitzgerald,
[54:45] Speaker 3: and I asked him, I said, do you think maybe
[54:48] Speaker 3: you could contact Terry for me? And through David, I
[54:52] Speaker 3: was able to contact Terry and speak to him, and
[54:54] Speaker 3: he's written his own book which he's self published, about
[54:58] Speaker 3: what happened. And and I suppose is also just a
[55:02] Speaker 3: beautiful tribute to his son, and it's not just about
[55:05] Speaker 3: how he died, but how he lived. And so yeah,
[55:08] Speaker 3: I was able to sort of understand, if not how
[55:11] Speaker 3: all twenty people passed away. And it gnaws at me.
[55:14] Speaker 3: But I also understand that, like I wanted to know
[55:16] Speaker 3: the names of the Indonesian people who died, I was.
[55:19] Speaker 3: It always has upset me that it's twenty people died,
[55:24] Speaker 3: four Australians, sixteen others, and I'm like, but who were
[55:28] Speaker 3: these sixteen others? And I've gone about trying to piece
[55:32] Speaker 3: it together, and there have been a number of occasions
[55:35] Speaker 3: where I've sort of asked, and eventually the response I
[55:37] Speaker 3: got that I could understand was like, this is a
[55:40] Speaker 3: privacy issue. We can't just give you the names of people.
[55:44] Speaker 3: Like there's stuff that's in the public domain and you
[55:46] Speaker 3: can find out your answers there, but we can't. We
[55:48] Speaker 3: would have to ask these families, are you happy for
[55:51] Speaker 3: us to tell this random Australian guy if you know
[55:54] Speaker 3: the names of your deceased loved ones. So I can
[55:57] Speaker 3: understand it from that perspective, but it still bothers me
[55:59] Speaker 3: that I I don't know these people with whom I
[56:02] Speaker 3: have a kinship and yet I don't even know their name,
[56:05] Speaker 3: who they were, where they passed away.
[56:08] Speaker 2: Why did you decide to do this now twenty years on,
[56:11] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[56:13] Speaker 1: It's really has It always been just in the back
[56:16] Speaker 1: of your head that as a journalist one day I
[56:18] Speaker 1: might and now you're finally ready.
[56:20] Speaker 3: It defined me for a little while, you know, I
[56:24] Speaker 3: was that kid from Bali, particularly in Newcastle. I appreciated
[56:28] Speaker 3: it until I didn't, and then I was determined to
[56:31] Speaker 3: be like, you know what, if you don't want it
[56:34] Speaker 3: to define you, then you need to stop talking about it.
[56:37] Speaker 3: Just let it fade away. And if you let it
[56:40] Speaker 3: fade away, then nobody's going to bring it up. And
[56:42] Speaker 3: I was living in Newcastle. I moved to Sydney and
[56:44] Speaker 3: that really helped it to fade away. And then I
[56:47] Speaker 3: moved to England and that really helped it to fade away.
[56:50] Speaker 3: And I came back to Australia and I was working
[56:56] Speaker 3: as a freelance writer and I was doing a bunch
[57:02] Speaker 3: of ghost writing. Basically, it was just CEOs and executives
[57:07] Speaker 3: and whatnot, and I'd write opinion pieces for them and
[57:09] Speaker 3: you know various Basically you take whatever you can get.
[57:13] Speaker 3: I'd done well enough as a journalist that I had
[57:18] Speaker 3: gone back to UNI to become a lawyer, where I
[57:20] Speaker 3: was like, I am never going to earn enough money
[57:22] Speaker 3: writing under my own name to provide for a family.
[57:26] Speaker 3: And then I started writing under other people's names, and
[57:28] Speaker 3: I was like, Oh, this is how you make money.
[57:30] Speaker 3: You just have to not be yourself. And so I
[57:33] Speaker 3: started ghost writing. And then when I would go to
[57:37] Speaker 3: the parbor, I'd be out at a party or whatever
[57:39] Speaker 3: it was, and people would say, what do you do
[57:41] Speaker 3: for a living? I'd say I'm a ghost writer, and
[57:43] Speaker 3: they'd go, you should ghost write my autobiography. I have
[57:49] Speaker 3: had the most amazing life, and I'd go, oh yeah,
[57:52] Speaker 3: and they'd tell me about their amazing life and I'd go,
[57:54] Speaker 3: that's pretty amazing.
[57:56] Speaker 2: That I'm sitting on something bigger.
[57:58] Speaker 3: Mine's kind of crazier than that. And I wouldn't respond
[58:01] Speaker 3: to Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's wild awesome. Yeah, okay,
[58:04] Speaker 3: so you know, here's what I charge. Do you want
[58:05] Speaker 3: to you know? And then they'd go oh, oh okay, okay, yeah, no, no, no,
[58:10] Speaker 3: you know, you get the money together, we'll talk. But
[58:12] Speaker 3: that really did start to make me think like, hang on,
[58:15] Speaker 3: there's this huge story here. And then I also started
[58:18] Speaker 3: to go, I don't know any of the detail. And
[58:21] Speaker 3: if I don't know any of the detail, that means
[58:24] Speaker 3: nobody knows any of the detail. Because if anyone's going
[58:26] Speaker 3: to know, it's going to be the people that were there.
[58:28] Speaker 3: And it's just so broadly overlooked and misunderstood or not
[58:34] Speaker 3: understood at all that I still started to think like, well,
[58:37] Speaker 3: what if I'm the one that finds it out? And Yeah,
[58:40] Speaker 3: I think there's that thing. You know, if you've got
[58:43] Speaker 3: a story that nobody else has written before, it's not
[58:45] Speaker 3: because no one's interested, it's because no one's written it before.
[58:48] Speaker 2: So for the twenty years, who did you think had
[58:51] Speaker 2: done the bombings? Because when you get into the nitty
[58:53] Speaker 2: gritty of yours, it's so complicated. Yeah, so did you
[58:58] Speaker 2: just think it was terrorist? Did you know it was? Like?
[59:01] Speaker 2: What were the details you knew?
[59:03] Speaker 3: So it had always just been I suppose a bit
[59:07] Speaker 3: of a handwave of it's Jama's Lamia. They're this terrorist
[59:11] Speaker 3: network that exists throughout Indonesia. They did the two thousand
[59:14] Speaker 3: and two Barley bombing, They've done other bombings. Then they've
[59:16] Speaker 3: done this bombing, and that's that's sort of all you
[59:19] Speaker 3: need to know. And these two names had come up
[59:21] Speaker 3: very early on in the piece and it was not
[59:24] Speaker 3: in Top and as Harry Hoosin, and like I remember
[59:29] Speaker 3: reading their names in the paper, you know, within a week,
[59:31] Speaker 3: and it was like Ji members, not in top and
[59:34] Speaker 3: as Harry Hoosin. And they weren't the leaders of jamais Lamia,
[59:40] Speaker 3: but they were highly placed field commanders, you know, like
[59:44] Speaker 3: the guys who led the whole thing. I guess had
[59:47] Speaker 3: a public face and had names that were well known
[59:50] Speaker 3: and therefore weren't getting their hands dirty. Yeah, well, you know,
[59:53] Speaker 3: levels removed enough to be like, hey, we heard about that,
[59:57] Speaker 3: and it's a real shame and maybe you had it
[59:59] Speaker 3: coming and you'd sort of be like, oh, fuck you,
[1:00:03] Speaker 3: But that's not the kind of thing that you end
[1:00:05] Speaker 3: up going to prison for, is saying like, you know,
[1:00:07] Speaker 3: you deserve what came your way. Whereas In and as Hari,
[1:00:11] Speaker 3: it was more like, no, these guys, we don't know
[1:00:13] Speaker 3: where they are. They're on the run. They are Indonesia's
[1:00:16] Speaker 3: most wanted and they've struck again. So I was aware
[1:00:20] Speaker 3: that they were the people that the authorities were looking for.
[1:00:23] Speaker 3: But I was just of the understanding that it's just
[1:00:25] Speaker 3: a case of and they're Jamaris Lamya and and that's
[1:00:28] Speaker 3: just what it is.
[1:00:29] Speaker 2: What surprised you the most about digging into their backgrounds
[1:00:34] Speaker 2: and finding out more about them because you really humanize them.
[1:00:39] Speaker 2: That's what surprised me. They've got wives, kids. Yeah, they
[1:00:44] Speaker 2: went to university.
[1:00:45] Speaker 3: They were both really really smart, you know, as Hari
[1:00:50] Speaker 3: as doctor. As Hari he had a PhD that he
[1:00:52] Speaker 3: earned in reading in the UK. You know, he went
[1:00:55] Speaker 3: to UNI here in Adelaide, then he was in Malaysia,
[1:00:58] Speaker 3: then he went to the UK where he earned PhD.
[1:01:00] Speaker 3: You couldn't claim that either of them were ignorant of
[1:01:04] Speaker 3: what they were doing. These were men of the world,
[1:01:07] Speaker 3: educated and they had made a series of very firm
[1:01:10] Speaker 3: decisions not only about what they were going to do,
[1:01:13] Speaker 3: but what they weren't going to do in terms of
[1:01:18] Speaker 3: be family men, look after you know, the children that
[1:01:21] Speaker 3: they had brought into this world, with the women that
[1:01:23] Speaker 3: they claimed to have loved enough to have stood up
[1:01:25] Speaker 3: in front of their God and said, you know, I
[1:01:27] Speaker 3: do you know not? In top was married three times
[1:01:30] Speaker 3: and had multiple kids, and he just continued to you know,
[1:01:36] Speaker 3: live the life that he lived and destroy the lives
[1:01:38] Speaker 3: that he destroyed. And I thought that it was really
[1:01:40] Speaker 3: important to get that across because the world is such
[1:01:43] Speaker 3: a complex place and people are very complex, and the
[1:01:47] Speaker 3: idea that it's just like bad guys do bad things,
[1:01:51] Speaker 3: it's so much more nuanced than that.
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: This is probably too big a question. But why did
[1:01:56] Speaker 2: they do that bombing? What was their goal?
[1:02:00] Speaker 3: I mean terror? Yeah, that's and by that stage, after
[1:02:04] Speaker 3: the first barley bombing, jamar as Lamia splintered and there
[1:02:11] Speaker 3: were those within JI and JI had was massive already.
[1:02:15] Speaker 3: It was broken up into four what they call mantikis,
[1:02:20] Speaker 3: and Mantiki four was actually headquartered here in Australia. Oh
[1:02:24] Speaker 3: and it was primarily a fundraising division, but they also
[1:02:28] Speaker 3: had plans. There's you know, there's there are people and
[1:02:31] Speaker 3: the lands never came to fruition, thank god, but they had,
[1:02:34] Speaker 3: you know, plans for violence here on these shores. The
[1:02:37] Speaker 3: other three were divisions spread out throughout Southeast Asia. But
[1:02:42] Speaker 3: by dividing them up into these four different mantiquis meant
[1:02:45] Speaker 3: that they had different aims and they went about them
[1:02:48] Speaker 3: in methods that were unknown to one another. And so
[1:02:53] Speaker 3: that meant that there was if someone were to be
[1:02:56] Speaker 3: infiltrated in Mantiki one, it wouldn't compromise what going on
[1:03:00] Speaker 3: in any of the other three. You know, you just
[1:03:03] Speaker 3: know what's going on within your own little division, and
[1:03:06] Speaker 3: within that there's cells as well, So you know, even
[1:03:08] Speaker 3: within Mantiki one, it's not like everyone knows everything. It's
[1:03:11] Speaker 3: all there are cells, and that helps to keep things
[1:03:13] Speaker 3: very much compartmentalized and stops people from you know, spilling
[1:03:17] Speaker 3: the beans too far and wide about what happens next.
[1:03:20] Speaker 3: And I mean why they did what they did is
[1:03:24] Speaker 3: I mean, it goes, it runs so deep. I thought
[1:03:27] Speaker 3: initially that it was just like because nine to eleven happened,
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: and then there was obviously the US, you know, invaded
[1:03:34] Speaker 3: Afghanistan and then Iraq, and there was this series of
[1:03:37] Speaker 3: incidents that led up to what happened in two thousand
[1:03:39] Speaker 3: and five. And then I went into it and it's like,
[1:03:43] Speaker 3: oh no, Like there was a Christmas Eve bombing in
[1:03:45] Speaker 3: two thousand that really set this set of plans in motion,
[1:03:49] Speaker 3: But what led up to that bombing had been going
[1:03:54] Speaker 3: on since the nineties, and actually what had led up
[1:03:56] Speaker 3: to that had gone on since the eighties. There had
[1:03:58] Speaker 3: been plans for a Bali bombing in the eighties, and
[1:04:01] Speaker 3: they had been trying to bring a bomb into Bali
[1:04:04] Speaker 3: on a bus, and horrifically for the people that were
[1:04:07] Speaker 3: on the bus, the bomb went off on the bus
[1:04:09] Speaker 3: while it was still on Java. So a bunch of
[1:04:12] Speaker 3: people died on a bomb on a bus that was
[1:04:14] Speaker 3: bound for Bali. This was in the eighties, but they'd
[1:04:19] Speaker 3: started this school network that where all these kids had
[1:04:22] Speaker 3: come through and became the terrorists who did what they did.
[1:04:25] Speaker 3: That started in the seventies, and the guys that actually
[1:04:27] Speaker 3: did that had met in the fifties, and it had
[1:04:29] Speaker 3: all begun in the nineteen forties when Indonesia was like
[1:04:32] Speaker 3: it just goes back so far, and that the roots
[1:04:35] Speaker 3: of it are so deep that like trying to grapple
[1:04:38] Speaker 3: with like this singular question of why it happened, like
[1:04:42] Speaker 3: there is no one thing it is. It's this massive
[1:04:45] Speaker 3: pastiche of reasons. And if you're brought up in that
[1:04:49] Speaker 3: and people are as I say, like there's a whole
[1:04:51] Speaker 3: boarding school network. There were dozens of these schools, and
[1:04:54] Speaker 3: if you've been brought up understanding these decades of oppression
[1:05:00] Speaker 3: and injustice that has been going on around you. You
[1:05:05] Speaker 3: start to at least understand, if not give. I don't
[1:05:09] Speaker 3: know what the word is, but basically where I'm saying, like,
[1:05:11] Speaker 3: I don't agree with you, but I get I can
[1:05:13] Speaker 3: understand how you got to where you got to.
[1:05:16] Speaker 2: So it's not like it's an attack on tourists. It's
[1:05:19] Speaker 2: not an attack like it's it's much more complicated than.
[1:05:22] Speaker 3: That they did it in Bali for the simple reason
[1:05:25] Speaker 3: that Bali is far more famous than anywhere else in Indonesia.
[1:05:30] Speaker 3: You know, Bali has got this global tourism trade. You
[1:05:35] Speaker 3: know people come from, isn't it inn Eat, Prey love,
[1:05:39] Speaker 3: Like Julia Roberts has been there. Guys, it's a big deal.
[1:05:43] Speaker 3: Bali is this globally famous tourism hub and people go
[1:05:47] Speaker 3: to Bali more people would probably know the word. But
[1:05:51] Speaker 3: like I knew Bali before I knew Indonesia. Yeah, And
[1:05:54] Speaker 3: it wasn't until like maybe until we went there, maybe
[1:05:57] Speaker 3: a couple of years before maybe you know, the first
[1:05:59] Speaker 3: barley bomb that I came to understand that, Oh, Bali's
[1:06:02] Speaker 3: part of Indonesia, like it is, it is this sort
[1:06:05] Speaker 3: of you know, as I say, the most famous aspect
[1:06:08] Speaker 3: of that country, and so there was an element for
[1:06:11] Speaker 3: them bombing Bali. The plan was, let's make a statement
[1:06:16] Speaker 3: that gets global recognition, and and it worked. You know,
[1:06:21] Speaker 3: there's you know, George W. Bush, you know, gave a
[1:06:25] Speaker 3: message of condolence. Vladimir Putin sent a telegram of condolence
[1:06:30] Speaker 3: like this was this was this big international event. So
[1:06:34] Speaker 3: in that regard, you know, the reason they hit Bali
[1:06:36] Speaker 3: was because it was it was the big name, it
[1:06:39] Speaker 3: was the most famous place to hit whilst still being
[1:06:41] Speaker 3: in Indonesia and therefore having the like the the possibilities
[1:06:48] Speaker 3: and I suppose the ease is the wrong word, but
[1:06:51] Speaker 3: basically like they smuggled bombs on buses into Bali from
[1:06:55] Speaker 3: Java and by being within that same country, it's like,
[1:06:58] Speaker 3: all right, take it to the fame place that's still
[1:07:00] Speaker 3: within an area where you're not going to need a passport.
[1:07:03] Speaker 2: You mentioned towards the start of our interview that one
[1:07:06] Speaker 2: of your goals was to kind of find out more
[1:07:09] Speaker 2: about these suicide bombers and understand them. Why would someone
[1:07:12] Speaker 2: do that? Did you get more of an understanding of
[1:07:17] Speaker 2: those men?
[1:07:18] Speaker 3: It was a really big moment when I just learned
[1:07:23] Speaker 3: his name, I'd like, I remember, you know, this person
[1:07:31] Speaker 3: made this choice in two thousand and five. And it
[1:07:34] Speaker 3: was some time in twenty twenty one. I'm lying in
[1:07:38] Speaker 3: bed and i'd been going down, you know, been investigating
[1:07:44] Speaker 3: this thing and for a number of months, and I
[1:07:46] Speaker 3: still didn't have such basic information as these people's names.
[1:07:50] Speaker 3: And I remember lying in bed going through this PDF
[1:07:55] Speaker 3: and there it was Sarlek Ferdos and I'm like, got
[1:08:00] Speaker 3: a name, that's him. He's a real person. He's like,
[1:08:04] Speaker 3: this is a human being, you know, with a name
[1:08:06] Speaker 3: and I guess a family and all the things that
[1:08:09] Speaker 3: the rest of us have. And I remembered thinking, I'm
[1:08:15] Speaker 3: gonna wake up my wife and tell.
[1:08:16] Speaker 2: Her, and then I was like, does she need to
[1:08:18] Speaker 2: know the systemation?
[1:08:19] Speaker 3: No, wait till the morning. Yeah, but like and big
[1:08:22] Speaker 3: for you, it was. It was an enormous moment and
[1:08:24] Speaker 3: just to sort of think that the way that life
[1:08:26] Speaker 3: has changed in you know, like this this kid from
[1:08:29] Speaker 3: two thousand and five, and it's not until you know,
[1:08:32] Speaker 3: I'm a married man in the house that I bought
[1:08:34] Speaker 3: with the woman that I love, all these you know,
[1:08:36] Speaker 3: almost two decades later, that that just the simple fact
[1:08:40] Speaker 3: that this person had a name comes into you know,
[1:08:43] Speaker 3: my understanding, and then to sort of try to grapple
[1:08:46] Speaker 3: with it, as I say, it's it's just I think
[1:08:49] Speaker 3: it's the ecosystem that you're brought up in that you
[1:08:53] Speaker 3: you have these decades and you know, I say, it
[1:08:55] Speaker 3: goes back to the forties. I was listening to a
[1:08:57] Speaker 3: podcast talking about what went on with the Dutch East
[1:09:01] Speaker 3: Indies Company in like the sixteen hundreds, and there was
[1:09:06] Speaker 3: nothing about it that has like this direct route. But
[1:09:09] Speaker 3: just listening to the stories they were telling about the
[1:09:11] Speaker 3: way that the Dutch East Indies Company came in and
[1:09:14] Speaker 3: just ravaged islands in Indonesia and islands that now have
[1:09:18] Speaker 3: these strong terrorist links, I was like, oh my god, Like,
[1:09:23] Speaker 3: it doesn't start in the forties, Like it just goes
[1:09:26] Speaker 3: all the way back hundreds of years. And that's when
[1:09:29] Speaker 3: you start to sort of go, well, if it's been
[1:09:31] Speaker 3: hundreds of years of life in this country being infiltrated
[1:09:36] Speaker 3: and then colored by what has happened, you can start
[1:09:40] Speaker 3: to grapple with the concept that it's like, yeah, so
[1:09:42] Speaker 3: some people think that maybe violence is the answer.
[1:09:45] Speaker 2: And it sounds like these young men because they were
[1:09:48] Speaker 2: young men were so radicalized that it's not like it
[1:09:52] Speaker 2: sounds like they weren't scared or this was their purpose
[1:09:56] Speaker 2: to do this.
[1:09:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, I I really wanted to get my hands on.
[1:10:02] Speaker 3: I was unable to get my hands on the videos
[1:10:05] Speaker 3: that they created where they gave their last will and
[1:10:08] Speaker 3: testament and this was filmed, you know, a matter of
[1:10:13] Speaker 3: days before they went and did what they did, and
[1:10:18] Speaker 3: I've got you know, their snippets of it have been
[1:10:22] Speaker 3: published and they all sound really resolute and they have
[1:10:30] Speaker 3: this and one of the things that really blew my
[1:10:34] Speaker 3: mind was this sort of logic that occurs to them
[1:10:40] Speaker 3: and that has been drummed into them. And so one
[1:10:43] Speaker 3: of the things that was just like wait, what was
[1:10:46] Speaker 3: that one of the bombers, in his last will and
[1:10:49] Speaker 3: testament said to his family like, listen, you know this
[1:10:51] Speaker 3: is going to do what I'm doing, and I'm proud
[1:10:54] Speaker 3: of what I'm doing, and I'm you know, they were
[1:10:56] Speaker 3: doing it for their families because it was you and
[1:10:59] Speaker 3: your loved ones are guaranteed entry into paradise, but you've
[1:11:04] Speaker 3: got to pay your debts. So one of them he
[1:11:07] Speaker 3: was like, I'm doing this for all of us, and
[1:11:09] Speaker 3: also actually, oh, this guy fifty bucks, so can you like,
[1:11:13] Speaker 3: obviously I'm simplifying, but in his last testament shed to
[1:11:17] Speaker 3: his family, like, make sure you pay my debt to
[1:11:20] Speaker 3: such and such down the road who I owe money to,
[1:11:22] Speaker 3: because otherwise this doesn't work. I'm like, I'm not ridiculing
[1:11:29] Speaker 3: or making light of a person's faith, but at the
[1:11:32] Speaker 3: same time, I'm like, what, I can't understand how you
[1:11:37] Speaker 3: could believe that there is a higher power that would
[1:11:42] Speaker 3: grant you eternal paradise for the act of killing other
[1:11:46] Speaker 3: people on condition that you've paid someone back the money
[1:11:49] Speaker 3: that you owe them. Wild Like, what a strange loophole
[1:11:52] Speaker 3: to have to close. It's like, Oh, you've done the most,
[1:11:55] Speaker 3: you know, the most amazing thing that you can do
[1:11:58] Speaker 3: by this act, but oh, you guys some money? No, sorry,
[1:12:02] Speaker 3: hey you're out.
[1:12:04] Speaker 2: Yeah it doesn't really end up.
[1:12:06] Speaker 3: Yeah you're really Yeah, And it does. Then you start
[1:12:10] Speaker 3: to sort of say, I have spoken to people. It's
[1:12:16] Speaker 3: amazing group called the Victims of Victims of Terrorism Australia
[1:12:20] Speaker 3: voter and have since struck up friendships with a number
[1:12:24] Speaker 3: of people from who have survived other terrorist attacks. And
[1:12:27] Speaker 3: I was speaking to Luis A Hope who survived the siege.
[1:12:32] Speaker 3: The siege, Yeah, And I said, you know, I spoke
[1:12:34] Speaker 3: about the man in the siege Monas. I said, you know,
[1:12:38] Speaker 3: a madman and she said he wasn't. He wasn't a madman,
[1:12:41] Speaker 3: Like he was within his right mind. You know, he
[1:12:44] Speaker 3: knew what he was doing. And it was only after
[1:12:47] Speaker 3: the fact that I sort of realized what I meant
[1:12:49] Speaker 3: by that is like, these people aren't crazy. Their logic
[1:12:54] Speaker 3: is warped where it's like you're you're acting in a
[1:12:57] Speaker 3: completely rational fashion. It's just that the rationality that you're
[1:13:03] Speaker 3: existing within, that the part that doesn't make sense, that's
[1:13:07] Speaker 3: the part that's mad. Is that like, if you think this,
[1:13:11] Speaker 3: this final act of yours is the right thing to do,
[1:13:14] Speaker 3: then there's a madness somewhere within the logic that your
[1:13:17] Speaker 3: whole life revolves around that does not make sense.
[1:13:21] Speaker 2: That's a really interesting way to think about it. Has
[1:13:25] Speaker 2: doing this, finding out all this information, has it been
[1:13:29] Speaker 2: helpful for you? Cathartic, traumatizing, d all of the above?
[1:13:35] Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, no, I shouldn't say that it hasn't been traumatizing.
[1:13:41] Speaker 3: It's been. It's been hard at times. It was a
[1:13:46] Speaker 3: dark road. I'm so lucky to have my wife who
[1:13:51] Speaker 3: when things were at their darkest, I wasn't worried about
[1:13:53] Speaker 3: the light at the end of the tunnel because she
[1:13:54] Speaker 3: was holding my hand and yeah, like amazing woman. People
[1:14:01] Speaker 3: asked me, they said, like, why did you do this? Yeah,
[1:14:04] Speaker 3: and I don't know that I have a great answer,
[1:14:07] Speaker 3: except that knowing what I know now and being able
[1:14:11] Speaker 3: to sort of place a logic around it, even if
[1:14:15] Speaker 3: that logic is completely illogical to me, it does help
[1:14:18] Speaker 3: me to understand things better. And I think you're only
[1:14:22] Speaker 3: ever going to have greater peace if you can understand things.
[1:14:26] Speaker 3: And so it being this black box, this disaster that
[1:14:30] Speaker 3: occurred and that shaped so much of my life, was
[1:14:34] Speaker 3: never going to be helpful. And just to be able
[1:14:37] Speaker 3: to spend some time really delving into it and finding
[1:14:40] Speaker 3: out some of the as I say, the logic, getting
[1:14:44] Speaker 3: the names, just understanding actually what happened, as really it has.
[1:14:50] Speaker 3: It's been a really it's been helpful for me. And
[1:14:53] Speaker 3: like from the perspective of a journalist, for someone who
[1:14:58] Speaker 3: spends their life, you know, telling other people's stories, to
[1:15:02] Speaker 3: go delving into it, I was like, oh my god,
[1:15:05] Speaker 3: what a crazy story, and like the amount of stuff
[1:15:08] Speaker 3: that ended up on the cutting room floor is nuts.
[1:15:12] Speaker 3: Like the guys who did Bali one and were then
[1:15:16] Speaker 3: on death row had phones and laptops smuggled into their
[1:15:22] Speaker 3: cells while they were on death row, and they were
[1:15:24] Speaker 3: in contact with not in top and as Hari, and
[1:15:29] Speaker 3: they didn't do the logistical planning, but were in contact
[1:15:32] Speaker 3: with them and able to help them to work out
[1:15:36] Speaker 3: how to brainwash and infiltrate the minds of the kids.
[1:15:40] Speaker 3: That kids the people that did Bali two, so like
[1:15:45] Speaker 3: just something as wild as that, it didn't make it
[1:15:48] Speaker 3: in And the reason they were able to smuggle in
[1:15:51] Speaker 3: the phones and the laptops was because these guys who
[1:15:54] Speaker 3: again are on death row, brainwashed one of the prison
[1:15:57] Speaker 3: guards and he was the one that was bringing in
[1:16:00] Speaker 3: the phones and the laptops for them to use. Wow,
[1:16:03] Speaker 3: and so many steps, so many steps, and you start
[1:16:07] Speaker 3: to then grapple with just how effective these people are
[1:16:10] Speaker 3: what they're doing in terms of giving people a purpose.
[1:16:13] Speaker 3: And it really made me think about terrorism in a
[1:16:17] Speaker 3: different way. And I don't want to go into what
[1:16:21] Speaker 3: would be but I've looked at some of the interviews, well,
[1:16:25] Speaker 3: the footage and the journalism that's been done about the
[1:16:28] Speaker 3: people that did what they did in Bondai, and I
[1:16:31] Speaker 3: see this kid, this teenage kid, and I just think
[1:16:36] Speaker 3: you give a person who doesn't know who they are
[1:16:39] Speaker 3: a purpose, and it's such a powerful thing, and that
[1:16:44] Speaker 3: power can be horribly misused. Have you been back to Bali?
[1:16:49] Speaker 3: I haven't any desire. Yes, and no, I haven't been
[1:16:53] Speaker 3: back to a lot of countries, you know. And I
[1:16:56] Speaker 3: know that sounds silly, but you know, in the years
[1:17:01] Speaker 3: that have followed, I've Bali. What happened in Bali never
[1:17:04] Speaker 3: stopped me from living my life. You know. I've had
[1:17:07] Speaker 3: this amazing life, and I've traveled really broadly and have
[1:17:14] Speaker 3: gone through huge parts of Southeast Asia and have had
[1:17:18] Speaker 3: amazing times. And there's this part of me that's like, well,
[1:17:23] Speaker 3: if I'm going to go on holiday, I want to
[1:17:25] Speaker 3: go somewhere new. I want to go see something different,
[1:17:26] Speaker 3: I want to experience something else. And this other part
[1:17:30] Speaker 3: of me that says you should go back to Bali says, yeah,
[1:17:33] Speaker 3: but what kind of holiday is that going to be?
[1:17:35] Speaker 2: And I have to dig up all my old trauma.
[1:17:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, go and feel unsafe and be traumatized, and like,
[1:17:41] Speaker 3: I would not take my kids there. And that's not
[1:17:45] Speaker 3: fair to say, because that's a me thing, not a
[1:17:48] Speaker 3: Balley thing. Yeah, that's I would just sort of feel
[1:17:51] Speaker 3: within myself like I would feel completely unsafe. And if
[1:17:54] Speaker 3: I feel unsafe, I you know, I don't want my
[1:17:58] Speaker 3: my babies to be unsafe. And again there's there's a
[1:18:01] Speaker 3: lack of logic there that I completely acknowledge, and I
[1:18:04] Speaker 3: you know, and I'm I and I'm apologetic because the
[1:18:08] Speaker 3: Balinese were so amazing in the aftermath, you know, just
[1:18:13] Speaker 3: how kind and generous they were. They deserve so much
[1:18:17] Speaker 3: better than for someone to sort of say like, I
[1:18:20] Speaker 3: can't go back, but thus far I can't, and kind
[1:18:26] Speaker 3: is the wrong word. Thus far I haven't. And selfishly,
[1:18:31] Speaker 3: when the twentieth anniversary rolled around, I thought, okay, there's
[1:18:35] Speaker 3: an opportunity here for the Australian government to pay for
[1:18:38] Speaker 3: me to go back to Bali. And I was like, well,
[1:18:41] Speaker 3: I'm going to go on a free holiday and I
[1:18:43] Speaker 3: leave the kids with my mum and dad. Maybe that's
[1:18:46] Speaker 3: the way to do it where it's like, well, at
[1:18:49] Speaker 3: least I didn't spend my own money to feel this uncomfortable,
[1:18:52] Speaker 3: and maybe I could put some ghosts to bed. I
[1:18:55] Speaker 3: don't know. But when the twentieth anniversary rolled around, I
[1:18:58] Speaker 3: ended up sort of leading the charge a little bit
[1:19:02] Speaker 3: for the memorial that happened in Newcastle. And by the
[1:19:04] Speaker 3: time the offer was put forward to do you want
[1:19:06] Speaker 3: to go to BALLEI, I was like, no, I need to.
[1:19:08] Speaker 3: I need to bring home what's happening in Newcastle. So
[1:19:12] Speaker 3: I've not been back. I as I said, that's that's
[1:19:15] Speaker 3: a me thing. That's not a Balley thing.
[1:19:16] Speaker 2: That's you know, it doesn't sound like you need to
[1:19:18] Speaker 2: go back.
[1:19:19] Speaker 3: No, I don't think so. I think I'd like to
[1:19:22] Speaker 3: at some point, but at the same time, it's not
[1:19:25] Speaker 3: it doesn't eat at me. I don't feel like I've
[1:19:28] Speaker 3: lost out or I've missed out. And I'm really proud
[1:19:31] Speaker 3: to say that. So so many of the rest of
[1:19:35] Speaker 3: the Newcastle group and survivors in general have gone back.
[1:19:39] Speaker 3: And you know, the story concludes with Kim Griffiths, who survived.
[1:19:45] Speaker 3: He went back like less than a month later. He
[1:19:48] Speaker 3: immediately just just said, I you know, I love this
[1:19:53] Speaker 3: this place and I love these people, and I can't
[1:19:57] Speaker 3: let this stop me from going back. So if I
[1:20:00] Speaker 3: go back straight away, it doesn't become a mountain that
[1:20:02] Speaker 3: I can't climb, and he went back within a matter
[1:20:06] Speaker 3: of weeks and was back again dozens of times.
[1:20:12] Speaker 1: Thank you to Joe for telling us his story. If
[1:20:14] Speaker 1: you want to see visuals from this episode, head over
[1:20:17] Speaker 1: to our Instagram page at True Crime Conversations, and for
[1:20:21] Speaker 1: in depth case explainers, follow us on TikTok under the
[1:20:24] Speaker 1: same name. True Crime Conversations is hosted by me Jemma Bath.
[1:20:28] Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Tarlie Blackman, the group executive producer
[1:20:32] Speaker 1: is Alaria Brophy, and there's been audio design by Jacob Brown.
[1:20:36] Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week
[1:20:39] Speaker 1: with another True Crime Conversation

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.