Bali blast death toll at least 202 people
Bali blast death toll at least 202 people
Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Police on Tuesday wrapped up more than four months of work to
identify the dead in the Oct. 12 Bali bombing, estimating the
final death toll at more than 202 people from 21 countries.
The figure does not include the 140 bags of body parts which
could not be identified. Police have said that each bag contains
on average eight to 10 different traces of DNA, but some of which
were scattered among several bags.
Bali Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Y. Suyatmo said the final
death toll was based on the last report filed by the Disaster
Victims Identification (DIV) team. DIV ended its work here last
week.
Comprising forensic experts from Indonesia, Australia,
Singapore and Thailand, the team had worked for over four months
to identify the victims.
Aside from the body bags, DIV has said that three bodies
remain unidentified and are still lying in the morgue at Bali's
Sanglah hospital. It is unclear whether or not they are
Indonesians.
Out of the 199 identified victims, 191 died in Bali, seven in
Australia and one in Singapore.
Most of the victims were foreign tourists, as the bombers
targeted two nightclubs in the tourist town of Kuta frequented
mainly by foreign tourists.
Of the 21 different nationalities among the dead, Australia
claims the highest loss with 88 victims. Indonesia has the second
highest loss with 38 victims and Britain third with 23.
Sweden meanwhile lost nine nationals, the United States lost
seven, Germany six and the Netherlands four, according to AFP
New Zealand, France and Denmark each lost three nationals;
while Japan, South Korea, South Africa and Brazil lost two.
Singapore, Taiwan, Italy, Portugal, Ecuador, Poland and Canada
all lost one national, it said.
All of the foreign victims have been flown home, with just
four bodies still in Bali, officials said last week. The four
victims were Swiss, Dutch, Danish and Brazilian.
With the end of DIV's work, the Bali administration plans to
bury the 140 bags of unidentified remains on the island.
Police believe the bombing was the work of the shadowy Jamaah
Islamyiah (JI) organization. JI is a regional militant group with
bases reportedly also in Malaysia and Singapore.
JI's alleged spiritual leader Abubakar Ba'asyir may be named a
suspect in the Bali bombing case. He has been under arrest since
November last year over his alleged role in the series of church
bombings on Christmas Eve in 2000.
Police spokesman Suyatmo said they would submit the case files
of Bali bomb key suspects, Imam Samudra, to prosecutors on
Wednesday, in the first step toward his trial.
The case file implicates him as the mastermind of the attack,
and it contains 112 witness accounts against him. Samudra himself
claims to be the main player behind the attack.
Suyatmo said that one of the witnesses, Malaysian suspect Wan
Min, would likely be asked to testify either in person or via
teleconference before the court.
Wan Min could be the link connecting the Bali bombing to the
international terrorist group al-Qaeda.
He told police in Malaysia that he had transferred US$30,000
to Indonesian suspect Mukhlas to finance the attack. Mukhlas said
it was al-Qaeda's money.
He forwarded the money to Samudra who distributed it among the
other suspects to purchase explosive materials and the vehicle
used for the bombing.
Samudra however claimed that he financed the attack by robbing
a gold shop in Serang, the capital of Banten.
No evidence was found to substantiate either claim, nor has it
been disclosed where Wan Min obtained the money from.