Chained Italian man found in rice field

I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post/Denpasar

An Italian man, believed to be a victim of a violent crime, was found on Monday morning lying semi-conscious in an isolated rice field near Tibubeneng beach, some 10 kilometers north of Bali's tourist area of Kuta.

The man was identified as Gabriel Paroli, 43, who, since Friday, had been registered as a guest at Puri Tanah Lot Hotel in Legian.

He was found at around 6:30 a.m. by a local woman, Ni Nyoman Sember, 40, who was on her way to feed her cows. Sember spotted Paroli's twitching legs jutting out of a narrow ditch. Terrified by the scene, Sember ran back to nearby Tegalgundul hamlet to inform local leaders.

A group of men ran to check out the report. There they found Paroli lying in a small ditch in the rice field. His hands were tied with plastic cords and a padlocked metal chain. Another strip of plastic cord bound his ankles and his mouth was gagged with a handkerchief and a strip of duct tape.

Assisted by police officers, the villagers unbound Paroli and rushed him to Sanglah Hospital, some 15 kilometers away.

"At that time, the victim was still able to speak although incoherently. However, he fell unconscious upon his arrival at Sanglah," Bali police spokesperson Sr. Comr. AS Reniban said.

As of late Monday, he was still in the intensive care unit. A group of uniformed and plainclothes police officers stood guard outside the ward, screening all visitors.

On Monday afternoon, the chief of the Bali Police crime investigation division, Sr. Comr. DBM Suharya was seen visiting the victim. But he refused to give any details about the ongoing investigation. "We are working on it. Now we are going to Puri Tanah Lot Hotel to interrogate the employees," he said on his way out.

So far, the police had questioned at least three witnesses, including Sember.

One of the detectives, however, disclosed that there weren't any open wounds observed on Paroli's body. "We found bruises on several parts of his body, on his neck, behind one of his ears, on the back of his head and on his leg. There was also some minor bleeding from his nose," he said.

Moreover, bruises and scratches were also found on Paroli's palms. "These suggest that Paroli tried to resist his attackers," he said.

He also revealed that before falling unconscious, Paroli had repeatedly muttered a word. "He kept mumbling 'security, security', we are trying to figure out what he meant by that," he admitted.

Paroli is the second Italian citizen in a week to fall victim to a violent crime near Tibubeneng beach, a sparsely populated area. On Oct. 27, an Italian woman, Rafaella Bacagli, 31, was murdered and dumped in the area. Her body was found next to a narrow dirt path to the beach. The police still do not have any leads on the motive or the perpetrators of that homicide.