Bomb attack survivor leads battle against terrorists
Bomb attack survivor leads battle against terrorists
Associated Press, Manila, Philippines
When Philippine Ambassador Leonides Caday talks of the urgency of combating terrorism, he doesn't need fiery rhetoric or doomsday warnings. He just tells of how he survived a 2000 car bombing in Indonesia that left him with metal plates in his legs.
The dynamite-rigged van near his Jakarta residence killed two people and left him with ugly scars, and was among the first in a wave of bombings later blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida- linked group believed to be seeking a hardline Islamic state in Southeast Asia.
"I was the first victim of terrorism," Caday told The Associated Press in an interview.
Caday was the Philippines' top envoy to Indonesia at the time. Now 73, he has since recovered -- his bomb-shattered legs reinforced with metal plates to allow him to walk again, though he has to use a cane.
He's now a foreign affairs adviser on terrorism and other security threats, and attends anti-terror conferences, using his story as a warning to others.
He recalled the horror of the car-bomb attack during the interview Tuesday.
Seated behind his driver, Caday said they were about to enter his residence in Jakarta's swank diplomatic district when a van exploded beside the gate, spewing fire and debris.
"From inside, I heard this muffled boom," he said. "All the window glasses were blown into shreds, some puncturing my business suit. Dark-grayish smoke filled the car and I remember shutting my eyes because it was painful. I covered my face with my hands."
He said he wasn't immediately aware that his legs were mangled by the blast, his hair and eyebrows burned and blood dripping all over his numb body.
Caday said he struggled to get out but all the doors were jammed. He turned to his Indonesian driver but found out he was blown out of the car by the impact. The driver survived, but a house guard and a passer-by died on the spot.
Caday said his car would have caught fire but was doused by water spurting out of an underground pipe damaged by the blast.
Last October, an Indonesian court convicted and handed a 20- year jail term to Abdul Jabar, who confessed he drove the bomb- laden van to Caday's residence then detonated it using a mobile phone.
A suspected Jemaah Islamiyah bomb expert arrested in the Philippines, Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, also was charged in the attack.
He had allegedly admitted to the bombing, with Jabar and another man, on orders of the group's operations chief, Hambali, an Indonesian whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, to avenge a military offensive on Muslim separatists in the southern Philippines.
But Al-Ghozi escaped from police custody in July and was killed by police in a shootout last October.
Despite his brush with death, Caday said he harbors no ill feelings toward his attackers or Indonesia, which has been criticized by the United States and other countries for not doing enough to contain terror threats.
A foreign affairs veteran since 1968, Caday also doesn't advocate a military solution but urges governments to try to ease conditions that trigger unrest and rebellion -- such as poverty.
He called Al-Ghozi a harmless man who was misled by his beliefs, and recalled meeting him face-to-face at a justice department hearing. "I shook his hand and he smiled," Caday said. Still, the attack taught him a painful lesson -- that terrorists could strike any time, including those who think they are not likely targets. "I thought I had no enemies," he said.
And although Caday wants to forget his tragedy, he says it comes back to haunt him "every time I want to move quickly but can't."
"It's like a wound, it heals, but it leaves a scar."
GetAP 1.00 -- APR 21, 2004 14:12:10