I Survived the 2005 Bali Bombing: Joe Frost’s Untold Story
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He wanted to know who was behind it and why and hear from those he survived the attack alongside 20 years on.
Joe joins us now.
Joe, thank you for coming on True Crime Conversations.
Tell me about yourself.
You’re from Newcastle, as am I.
How did you find yourself as a 20-year-old man on a trip to Bali? >> I do.
You know what? I’m going to pull you up on one thing there.
When I was 20, I was like, I am not a man.
I >> OF ALL THE THINGS to pick me up on, >> I am butter boy.
And it was particularly uh emphasized I suppose by the fact that it was a family holiday and I was there with my parents and I was there with a group of uh people that were sort of teenagers.
So the youngest of the group would have been my little brother who was 10.
There was the bulk of the the kids that were there were sort of 16 17 years old and they were these boys who had organized to go on a trip.
They had planned to do a dry run of schoolies.
So, it was the end of year 11 and they were like, “Yeah, yeah, we’re going to do a dry run of schoolies.
We’re just going to go to Bali on our own.
It’s going to be sick.
” >> Oh, yeah.
Cool.
>> Yeah.
And obviously their parents were like, “You what? No, that’s absolutely not going to happen.
” So, the parents said, “Look, we’ll come with you.
We’ll all stay at the same hotel.
You guys can have your own rooms.
You can do your own thing.
We’ll sort of stay out of your hair, but we’re not having you go to Bali on your own.
” And it was this group of boys and their parents came along.
And then, you know, they invited other parents and then other people sort of looped in as well.
And it ended up being a group of about 50 of us.
And I was I would consider like I was among the oldest of the kids that were there.
So, at 20, I was still sort of grouped in with like I I certainly felt closer and definitely was closer to my 10-year-old brother than I was to the 40 and 50 year old parents.
Um, and you know, and like there’s there’s this element of you still do it now sometimes where like you’re over there and you’re like, I’m drinking a beer later on.
I might smoke a cigarette.
I I better like make sure I take my deodorant with me so that I can spray myself so that mom and dad don’t smell anything on me.
Like Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cuz cuz deodorant covers up the smell of those clove cigarettes.
Um anyway, so yeah, I was uh yeah, family holiday and I think for us there was an element of it being a bit of a last harrah.
Um mom and dad were conscious of the fact that so I’m I’m one of six and so for all of us to go over on a holiday hadn’t happened in a long time.
This was going to be the last one and it ended up not even happening like that because my older brother had uni exam so he couldn’t come.
So there was uh myself, my four younger brothers and sisters, mom and dad, and then this group of all the others, and their parents, and there were sort of somewhere between 40 and 50 of us.
>> That’s wild.
What a trip.
>> Yeah.
>> Did you did you know most of them or many of them? Cuz did you know the surfer boys? Like where did your family fit in? >> So the central family were the Griffiths family and they’re they’re a real glue family.
So they had three boys.
uh Kyle who was a couple of years older than me, Dne who was my age and we had been best mates in primary school and then Jordan who was 3 years younger and it was Jordan and his mates who were attempting to do the dry run of schoolies and Jordan was the same age as my little sister Anna so they were mates and she was mates with all of those boys and then I’m mates with Dne and so that’s the other thing is like as much as I’m not necessarily that close with a lot of the boys we’d all hung out together at the Griffith’s place and then parents know parents and you know they get together for you know drinks thought just family stuff.
And so if you didn’t know them, know them.
>> It was a a step removed.
And we’d all sort of met and there was an, you know, it it wasn’t like there was anyone there that I was like, who’s this and I’ll never speak to them.
It was, oh, I’ve only met them recently.
And a lot of the others I’d known seriously their whole lives.
>> What an epic adventure to even plan.
>> Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, >> all at the same hotel.
>> Yes.
>> 50 of you.
Like I know that we’ve got to get past this, but it’s just such a a unique kind of way to start this story.
>> Uh yeah.
Yeah.
And I suppose it really it emphasizes the closeness of the group and how there was this tightness to us all.
Even if it was, you know, and and when disaster strikes, even if you’re a little bit looser than, you know, than family, >> you’re bonded pretty tight pretty uh pretty quick.
>> So it’s 2005.
There had been a bombing in Bali in 2002.
200 plus people killed.
88 Australians.
Was that front of mind? I’m guessing not for you as a 20-year-old, but for many in the group.
>> Certainly for me it wasn’t.
And I’ve I sort of got this theory about how um I think maybe Einstein had this theory about how time is relative.
But when you’re 20 years old, something that happened 3 years ago is a lifetime ago.
3 years when you’re 20 is so long ago.
Whereas now, 3 years ago, I’m like, “Oh, that was yesterday.
” Like, >> so for for me going over, I’m like, “Yeah, that that was 3 years ago, I I absolutely I I couldn’t be less concerned about it.
” M >> and my my big concern was the thing that had been really uh in the forefront of Australian news at the time was was drug smuggling because Chappelle Corby had been arrested sort of about a year earlier and the Barley 9 um drug smuggling thing was sort of going on at the time as well.
And so there was this whole situation of >> basically what’s going to happen when we get to the airport and >> what if someone puts something in our bag? >> Yes.
what if someone puts something in our bag? Um, and getting through the airport, that was when I was just sort of like, okay.
And it was, it wasn’t like it was, you know, a big fear, but there was just this little thing in the back of your head, like I don’t know, they said they planted it, so maybe someone’s going to plant.
And >> I feel like even as a 35-year-old, I think that when I go through the airport and I’ve done nothing wrong, >> like I’m like, someone’s going to get me.
What’s going to happen? And you haven’t done anything wrong.
>> No.
Well, yeah, not yet.
And so for me it wasn’t it wasn’t there but certainly for some members of the group and I’m sure the parents had a little bit more of that concern and I know my friend Alita who she was uh 21 at the at the time she was uh very conscious of it and had concerns about going to Bali and it was her first time ever going overseas.
>> Wow.
>> So she was Yeah.
was worried about it.
But there was also a thing we were doing cuz this is you know 4 years into the war on terror and there were it’s so funny to remember that time and how like remember post 911 people were like wearing American flags as t-shirts.
there was this real solidarity with like we stand with with the Americans and therefore there was also this like we stand against terrorism and the best way to stand against terrorism is to live your life as if nothing is going to happen and if you’re if if you’re scared of what might happen you’re letting the terrorists win.
Yeah.
So, there was also that little thing and I was a little bit like, “Yeah, I’m going to Bali.
” Like, if you’ll pardon my French, [ __ ] you guys.
Like, you know, like I’m I’m I’m brave.
I’m I’m not going to change who I am because of terrorists.
Like, that’s, you know, that’s that’s letting them win.
So, >> and nothing had happened in 3 years.
So, >> 3 years.
Yeah.
That’s a lifetime ago.
>> So, take me to October 1st.
It’s a Saturday.
What do you remember about the day? Because you were all staying in one hotel.
>> Yes.
Did you all hang out together >> in sort of an evening? We would all get together.
I remember we’d had um like organized a dinner one evening and otherwise it had sort of been you peel off into your age groups.
So I’d been hanging out with Dane Griffiths um by the day and at night we’d gone out to you know the bars and and nightclubs and that sort of thing.
Um, and on the Saturday we we’d been there for, I suppose, about 3 days at that stage.
And it had just been sort of, you know, do what you like, you know, spend your days surfing, shopping, whatever.
But on that day, um, there had been a a cultural tour had been organized.
And so we all piled onto a bus.
It was, I say all, um, if memory serves, the the boys who had sort of got the trip going were like, “You have fun with that.
We’re definitely not coming.
>> I can’t imagine 16-y old boys want to go on a cultural date.
>> Yeah.
That wasn’t for them.
And uh but you know, the the parents and the the younger kids, so my little brothers and sisters, we pile onto this bus and we went up into the mountains.
We went to Ubud, we went to the uh we went to a market, we went to we had a really lovely lunch somewhere, we went to there’s like a monkey forest.
Yeah.
Yeah.
>> The big incident of that day was that one of the kids, Louisawash, Alita’s younger brother, he got bitten by one of the monkeys.
>> That’s actually pretty bad.
>> Yeah.
>> Quite diseased.
>> Yes.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And it was one of those like, oh, and you know, like, well, we know what’s going to be the thing we always remember for the rest of our lives for our time in Bali when Louis got bitten by a monkey.
>> And uh and anyway, we made our way back to the hotel in the evening and it had been a long day.
We’d obviously seen a lot of sites and it was like Bali is just so hot >> and it had just been so hot and there hadn’t been air conditioning on the bus and >> the tour guide had he just he didn’t have an off switch and he just talked and talked and talked and so he got back and he said look if you would like as like an added extra we’ll go to Jimber and Beach for dinner.
It’s got this beautiful sunset, this amazing seafood.
Um, you know, a few extra dollars to jump on the bus, you go and you sort yourselves out dinner.
You know, it’ll be a beautiful evening.
Who’d be up for that? >> And all the kids on the bus were like, “Hard pass.
Absolutely not.
” >> And that’s completely understandable.
And I was leaning towards that as well.
>> And in particular, because my parents were like, “We’re going to stay with the kids.
You know, they’re not getting back on the bus.
” And so I was sort of like, uh, it’s it would be me and other parents.
>> A bunch of adults.
>> A bunch of adults.
Yeah.
As a boy.
Uh, yes.
I was like, I don’t know if I want to do that.
And I remember having a word to my dad about it like, yeah, I don’t think I’m going to go.
And he said, look, Alita’s going to go, so you’ll have her to chat to.
And mate, like, when are you going to get this opportunity again? You go, you know, it’s a beautiful sunset, amazing seafood.
it’s going to cost you like, you know, a a complete pittance.
You know, you’ll have a good time.
You should you should go.
So, uh I I sort of said, “Yeah, right.
” And so, we we’d spent an hour off the bus, you know, had a quick swim in the pool and then we piled back onto the bus.
So, there were 18 of us.
There were 16 uh parents, so I believe it was eight couples, eight sets of parents, and then Alita and myself.
And uh and yeah, and we we headed off to Jimber.
I’ve been to Jim Brown a few times.
I want to kind of paint the picture for those that haven’t been because it is a very unique experience.
It’s dozens of restaurants with all of the seating basically is on the beach all on the sand.
Rows and rows and rows of chairs and of an evening on sunset.
It is packed.
>> Yes.
>> There are so many people there.
>> What do you remember from Cuz I’ve been recently.
I haven’t been like you went 20 years ago.
Was it the same vibe then? >> Yeah.
Yeah.
Dozens and dozens of restaurants.
But because everything is on the beach, it it’s it’s like it’s just a one big restaurant.
>> That’s what it feels like.
Yeah.
It’s almost like a wedding or a party cuz it’s just everyone open air eating like alresco dining.
>> Yes.
>> Like prawns and like fresh seafood and like beautiful food.
Very cheap.
Lots of bintangs.
Beautiful sunset on that side.
Probably if I’m right, like a is it what? Like a half hour drive from where you were staying.
That sounds right.
Yeah.
>> It’s not that far, but >> it’s not that far.
Yeah.
>> You’re sitting there.
Do you remember the final moments before everything happened? Do you remember what you were doing? Did you have a meal? Were you having a drink? >> So, we we arrived and we we sat down and there was a bit of a okay, who’s going to sit where? Because the the direction you’re facing determined whether you would be looking at the sunset or you’d have to turn around and look over your shoulder at the sunset.
And I was one of the suckers who was turning around and looking over at the sunset.
>> You were the boy.
>> I was the boy.
Yes.
I was put in my place and that was where I was uh to sit for the evening.
We ordered our food and it just took a really long time for it to come.
And it it just it didn’t really register at the time, but like in Bali, food comes quick, >> especially there cuz it’s all very fresh.
>> Yes.
So there has always been a bit of conjecture as to well why did it take so long? Why like >> who knew what and why why wasn’t there the food brought out swiftly? And initially I sort of had those same I guess questions and I don’t have an answer to them anymore except to sort of work it through in my mind.
And in my head I’m like if I was waiting tables and I knew someone was going to strike my restaurant with a bomb, I’d call in sick.
>> Yeah.
>> I’m not I’m not going to be like, hm, >> I’ll just wait back here.
I’ll wait back here and eventually bring them their food.
Like maybe I’ll be able to vibe out when when disaster is going to strike.
So, I don’t know why, but it is it’s always been sort of discussed as to so who knew what and why did it take so long.
And hey, look, maybe it was just cuz there were 18 of us and it took longer to cook it or you know, they ran out of prawns and had to run next door and grab some spares.
Like, I’m inclined to have a bit more faith in humanity on that one, but I can understand why people >> don’t.
Yeah, cuz you guys were on the final table of the big group, weren’t you? >> We were towards the end.
I don’t think we were the very very last table, but we were sit sat towards the southern end of the big group of tables.
There might have been a handful of tables further to the south of us.
>> And yeah, so we’d ordered drinks and a second round of drinks.
So there were all these like bottles and glasses on the table which uh would prove consequential um because yeah I I had thought for a long time afterwards that there had been glass in the bombs that they used broken glass as a form of shrapnel >> which people do.
>> Yes.
But it turned out it had actually been that there had been this glass on our table.
So when the bomb went off, it all shattered and came out and that was what had caused a lot of the mayhem as well was >> right.
>> Yeah.
Glass from the actual from the table rather than it having been a part of the bomb.
>> Interesting.
So the first bomb was actually nowhere near you guys.
It was on the other end.
>> Yes.
>> And that happened at about 6:50.
>> The exact timing of it all is a bit of a blur.
Uh the sun had set is all I I recall.
And this just this bang went off to the left of where I was sitting.
And it was the loudest bang I’d ever heard in my life to that point.
And it it just sent the beach into chaos.
People just, you know, sprinting away screaming.
and Alita, who had been uh sat I believe sort of off to my left but on the other side of the table had got up and she’d run and her mother Julia got up and ran after her.
>> And part of me was like, >> well that’s that’s the thing to do.
Get up and get out of here.
But this other part of me was like, yeah, but like people are going to think you’re scared.
And imagine if people think you’re scared in this most scariest situation.
>> Imagine >> imagine if you’re scared at this most scary thing you’ve ever been in in your life.
And so I I just I was like, “Okay, don’t don’t don’t embarrass yourself by running away.
” >> Cuz a leader and her mom are running, but the rest of your table isn’t.
>> No.
So someone at the table said, “Look, just stay calm.
” I think it might have been a gas bottle exploding.
And I think there’s an undeniable logic to that of just like, guys, we don’t know what this is.
And it’s rare that panicking is going to be the right response in any situation.
So, as long as we don’t know what happened and people are running around, you know, in this mayhem, we’re going to get lost.
We’re going to get separated.
You know, things will get worse.
You know, that that’s a lot of things to project onto a person who’s just said sort of a single sentence, but I can see what the logic was in saying that.
And so most people just sort of stayed where they were.
Uh Jenny Pillar, who was sitting further up the table, went to get under the table and uh her husband was sort of like, “No, come on.
We’ll be all right.
” I stood up and I got up and I was just grabbing the back of my chair, just sort of grasping onto it and I just sort of thought if something else happens, at least I’m on my feet.
I can run away.
>> Yeah.
and knowing what I know now and I mean you know what I was to find out but even like I I was in the nightclubs on the the nights previous and I was always like you know if another bomb happens I’m at least aware so I’ll be able to run away and like I’ve since looked into what happened in Barley 1 and it was like a metric ton of TNT you’re like yeah you don’t outrun that >> I’m not a very fast runner >> because you probably thought it was more likely to happen then when You were out partying because the first bombings were at nightclubs.
>> Absolutely.
>> So, you would have been more on your like worried then than you were dining on a beach.
>> Yeah.
And there’s there’s not there’s no reason to do what happened, but you can almost sort of work through the logic of bombing a nightclub is sort of like, okay, you’ve come to this country and this is not the way that we behave.
You’re bringing this sort of, you know, Muslim country.
Yeah, that we don’t appreciate.
And so I I I don’t >> that’s not to say that obviously I don’t condone it in any way, but you can almost work out what the logic is there.
>> Sitting down and eating dinner.
>> Like what? This is the safest place to be, right? Like you’re in an open air and you’re just doing a thing that is completely like who is offended by eating a meal? >> And lots of Indonesians go there, too.
>> Yes.
>> Because it’s it’s not just a tourist spot.
It’s also a very popular local spot.
>> Yes.
And you know, who do you think works there? It’s it’s just local people, you know, waiters and and cooks and cleaners and everybody that’s working there is Indonesian.
Like this is going to be the safest place.
So, as I say, I sort of was standing up and gripping onto my chair and I was looking up to the left because that’s where the first bomb had gone off.
And so, logically, you’re like, well, that’s where the action happened.
And I was a bit scared or a lot scared and a little bit a little part of me was sort of like wow like this is a moment of history like and I’m I’m going to be able to tell my friends like hey I was there when that one bomb went off in Bali and my mom my mom has like this amazing story when she was traveling in uh through Europe as a you know must have been I can’t remember the exact year But she had been in the Vatican City when Pope John Paul was shot.
>> Oh wow.
>> So I I um you know she remembers she just heard you know a bang and people screaming and running and you know they had left and I remember sort of being like oh this is my moment that I’ll be able to tell my kids like mom told me you know I was there when the pope was shot and I’ll be able to trump moms.
>> Yeah.
Yeah.
Like you heard a thing I we saw it.
It’s you know wild.
And so I did I sort of had a you know a little like self-indulgent moment of oh my gosh like what a great story I’m going to be able to tell and and then I was just face down in the sand and there wasn’t a moment of like it it just it just happened and I think the way I describe it in the podcast is that it’s like the movie skipped a frame.
I was just I was there.
I was holding the back of my chair >> and then I was in the sand and there was no moment of falling down or noticing myself.
Nothing like that.
It wasn’t It didn’t go bang.
It went because my ears were just blasted out.
I lost both eard drums blew out and I was like so wedged into the sand.
It felt like I was like in it, not on it.
And at that point, you know, any question of it perhaps having been a barbecue, obviously >> gone.
>> The gas bottle theory was was obliterated at that point.
And I just had a flash in my mind, just this visual image of the SAR Club.
>> And that image of the SAR Club, certainly for, you know, Australians at that stage, is this indelible image of a building on fire.
And those flames were just such a I don’t know.
And it was almost a visceral sort of sight and I saw that and I felt my legs on fire and I just went, “Oh, bomb.
” Like in the sari club, my legs are on fire.
And I I got up and I pulled my shorts off and I ran into the water.
And I, you know, got to the water and sort of sused my surroundings out and was like, “Okay, I’m in the water.
There’s a lot of people in the water.
” And I I guess we all sort of thought a bomb can’t go off in the water.
It needs a flame, you know, to to ignite to so this is going to be the safest place.
And I look back and sort of assessed the scene and it became abundantly clear that that there was no fire and that I I had never been on fire.
And so I was just >> What was it? What was the pain? >> It was sand blast.
>> So the bomb had gone off and the sand obviously just goes spraying out and it had whipped my leg.
So, I’d been burned, but it was friction burned from all of this sand whipping past my legs rather than actual, you know, heat burns from flames.
Um, and I was I’d been wearing like a button-up t-sh um shirt and it had just been totaled from the bomb.
And so, I’m wearing this like half of a shirt and just a pair of like I hadn’t graduated to Big Boy undies either.
So I was wearing these like little like black tidy whitey things and that was me and I’m like oh this is the worst situation I’ve ever been in and I am half naked.
This is this is not not the ideal outfit for uh for what is to >> Were you bleeding? Like what were your injuries? >> It was like I’d been wounded and it had immediately cauterized.
So there’s like blood had like there’s I’ve got the uh the clothes back from the AFP eventually and I was wearing of course a bintang singlet and there’s like blood on it but I wasn’t bleeding from it >> and it completely miraculously and like I will never understand how I had not been hit by any shrapnel whatsoever.
So it completely bypassed me.
Um, and as I was to find out in the the weeks and months later was that basically I’d been standing so close or the bomber had been standing so close to me that when the bomb went off, the initial shock wave hit me and knocked me to the ground and then the shrapnel came out and it, you know, hit the people around me.
But my proximity to the bomber was was what saved me and you know meant that I came out of it with uh with messed up ears but but otherwise you know physically miraculously okay >> cuz you were kind of in the blind spot almost.
>> Yes.
Yeah.
And um speaking to uh the AFP officer who led the investigation into it, David Craig, he said that the way that they would were planned was basically that the bombers would work out who their targets were and then would turn to face the backpack at the target and then their body would act as the way of determining that the the blast would go away from them.
And so it would seem that the bomber has turned and faced me and then the bomb’s gone off and the shrapnel has like ripped him apart.
But in the moment that the shock wave has gone through him, it’s hit me.
And as his body has held back the shrapnel for that split second, I’ve hit the dirt and then it’s come out and gone into, you know, the rest of the people and the the surrounds.
>> You are so lucky.
to be alive.
>> Yeah.
>> Like, wow.
>> Yeah.
>> I heard you say that it’s possible that the last thing that bomber saw was you.
>> I think about that man less these days because I’ve obviously been on a bit of a journey to to work him out and that’s a fool’s errand.
Um, but you you spend a lot of time grappling with it and then you start to, you know, find some concrete evidence out about it.
You know, I didn’t know his name for >> a very very long time.
And so to sort of put these things in place, you find some things out and yeah, the conclusion that I’ve reached or the theory that I’ve got is that yeah, that if he’s turned and faced me and then blown it up, then there’s there’s a pretty good chance the last thing he saw was me.
Um, you know, this bloke who was maybe two or three years younger than him and I don’t know.
Yeah.
>> I want to get to him and the other bombers a bit later.
>> Sure.
>> But let’s kind of pick up.
You’re in the water.
You’re half naked.
You’ve realized what’s going on.
When you look back, what what do you see at the beach? Or is everyone in the water? Where is everyone? >> I don’t remember anyone walking.
Put it like that.
You were either standing still or running.
And I It’s funny.
I also I remembered it being, you know, lit up and then it just being pitch black.
And what I’ve learned afterwards is that the bombs had um shortcircuited because I don’t think it was the the lights there are probably on generators or something like that and they’ve it’s cut the lights.
>> So I I had this thing for years of being like it must just be my memory playing tricks on me that it’s gone from being light to being dark cuz in my mind I’m like, “Oh, the sun hadn’t set and then the bomb went off and suddenly the sun was set.
Like that doesn’t make sense.
” And someone explained to me, “No, no, the generators have cut and the lights have gone out and that’s why it was suddenly pitch black.
” >> Yeah.
Right.
>> So, you could sort of see, you know, pitch black isn’t the right word, but it’s suddenly got very dark and people are running.
And I was sort of just like, “All right, I’m in the water.
What do I do now?” And I had no idea where anyone that I had come with had gone.
And so, I just screamed the first name that came into my mind, and that was a leader.
And so the letter washers are um like best family friends.
Dad and Deep Mah have known each other since Deep said it was like 1966 I think when they first met.
And then mom and Julia had traveled together.
They’d been together in Vatican City.
>> Wow.
>> Um so they’d traveled together as as sort of you know in their early 20s.
And then their um kids are sort of the same age as us.
So we’ve we’ve all grown up together.
And so the the person that I was most concerned for was Alita.
And I started yelling her name.
And eventually I heard this other voice yelling Alita’s name.
And I sort of scanned the crowd and and I could see Deep Mom, her dad.
And I went sort of running up through the water to him and he he grabbed me and we hugged and he just said, “Those bastards.
” And I was like, “Yep.
” And that’s that.
Yeah.
And and then and then we started looking for for Julia and Alita.
And >> you’ve described the next hour of your life as the scariest hour of your life.
>> Yeah.
>> And you were with thankfully you were with someone.
>> Yeah.
>> It was you the next hour.
What did that even look like? >> We needed to find Julia and Alita.
That was our primary concern.
obviously Demar’s wife and daughter and you know we knew that they’d run to the south so we started going in that direction and then we sort of walked as far south as it made sense to do and then it was just like they’re not here.
This is just an empty sand in front of us.
So we turned around and came back and by this stage those hundreds of people that had been on the beach were gone.
It was just empty and it was just decimated tables and turned up chairs and that sort of thing.
And we tried to work out what the next logical steps would be.
And we thought, well, why don’t we go back to the car park because that’s where the bus is and maybe people have gone back to the bus and, you know, we’ll head back from there.
And we went up to the car park and and there was just this powder keg.
There was just this huge group of Indonesian people squared off at one another and they were having it out in I assume in Bahasa and we were just sort of looking and it was just this so tense like there are people just sort of screaming at each other and I look I I have no idea I have no idea what they were saying but in my mind I suppose it was good versus this is a terrible thing that’s happened you know like we support it we don’t I I’m that was what went And to my mind, as I say, that’s just me making it up based on what had immediately preceded it.
But I don’t know what words were being said.
>> And I just remember scanning the crowd and being like, everyone here is Indonesian except for Demar and I.
And people are pretty angry at the moment.
And I just turned to Deep and I went, I think we need to get out of here.
>> And he was like, yep.
And it was like, okay, the bus is not an option.
We need to get out of the car park.
So, we went back down onto the beach and thought, well, look, we we went that way.
I guess now we just go in the other direction.
Maybe that’s where people are.
And we had no idea what had happened.
So, in, you know, it would be the following days where we found out that they had been suicide bombers.
>> Yeah.
>> I was just completely naive as to what terrorism was.
You know, this is, you know, 2005.
Basically, I was like, terrorists are the bad guys in Harrison Ford movies, and what they do is they take people hostage and they negotiate for things, and you never negotiate with terrorists.
That’s that’s everything I knew about terrorism.
Now, 9/11 had changed what, you know, western understanding of terrorism was.
It wasn’t, you know, about, you know, negotiating for something else.
It was, no, you strike terror.
That’s, you know, it’s it’s done.
It’s a contained thing.
the outcome is that you’re scared.
Not that we get something else out of it, but at that stage I had no idea that that was what it was.
And the concept of a suicide bomber I that was completely foreign to me.
It made no sense.
Like why why would you even do that? >> How does someone get to that point to want to do that? >> And what’s the point? Like you you would there are hundreds of people on a beach just hide the bomb in the sand and then blow it up.
So that was what I had thought had happened.
And I was like, “Okay, so a bomb’s just gone off under our table and we now need to walk through this sea of tables.
” >> And I was just like, “Oh, any one of these is another bomb.
” And is this is this like a minefield situation where a step is what’s going to set it off? And just walking through those tables was just the the height of fear throughout that whole situation.
And it’s funny to look back on now because you know that all the danger that you were in had finished after that second bomb had gone off.
It was all done.
We were fine.
But that wasn’t the scary part.
The scary part was afterwards when logically now I know, you know, anticipating it.
>> Yeah.
And so it’s just walking through these tables just thinking, “All right, which one is going to be the bomb that goes off and and finishes the job?” But we we managed to get through them and we just continued walking north and again it was just through on empty sand.
There was nothing in front of us and eventually we came upon uh a a hotel complex up you know off the sand to our right and we just sort of thought well that’s the next logical place someone would have gone.
So we we wandered up there.
you found yourself to the hotel because to to explain Jimber Beach, it is this big stretch of beach, but then it’s got kind of fancy hotels kind of bordering it.
So, there’s a bunch of them.
So, I’m imagining that a lot of these people went through the different hotels, which is what you later found out happened.
And what Alita did, >> I always get it confused as to which one is which.
There’s the Four Seasons and the Intercontinental, and one is to the south and one is to the north.
And Alita had gone to the one to the south.
Yeah.
And I guess we’d walked just focused on the sand and we’d not seen or noticed that there had been a hotel, you know, to the south and we’d gone in the other direction to the north and had ended up in that hotel.
And I think anyone who had gone had run south and had gone into that hotel where Alita and Julia had gone and it had its own medical facilities.
So, not to handle what had happened, but at at least it was sort of equipped to start to, I guess, triage people and do some initial first aid and then get people out to, you know, better equipped places to deal with them.
We’d headed north and ended up at this other hotel which was far enough away that no one else had gone there.
So, we walked up into this hotel complex and yeah, and I think yeah, Demar had said to me, you know, I we go walking into it and he looked at me and I’ve just got, you know, basically no shirt and a pair of undies and my hair’s all over the place and he went, “Joey, they’re going to get the wrong idea about what you and I have been up to.
” And we sort of laughed and we went in and sort of told them what had happened and they were stunned.
Absolutely shocked.
>> Wouldn’t they have heard it? I that’s what I thought.
But I guess again maybe they were just like, “All right, gas bottles >> or fireworks or >> something.
” Yeah.
But I guess but no one else had come in to tell them.
So for whatever they thought it might have been, we were confirmation, which to us was confirmation that oh, then none of the rest of our group are here or have even made their way through here.
We thought, all right, well, if no one’s here, maybe they are back at the the car park.
We’ve tried to do it through, you know, the direct means.
maybe someone is sort of on the road on the way back.
So we went to walk along the road back towards the car park at that stage and that’s when we saw that you know the the authorities had kicked into gear and I guess it was the military because they were you know wearing that sort of um khaki sort of uniform and had the kind of guns like big assault rifles and uh the roads were closed off and we got to a closed off road and sort of tried to say to a guy like hey we we just want to get through to the car park we’ve just been in this bombing and we want to know where people are.
And he was having none of it, just wasn’t letting us through.
And a local Balanese man sort of came up to him and and translated for us and then sort of said to us, “Look, he’s he’s not letting you through.
No one’s allowed through.
Why don’t you come to my place? We’ll, you know, get you a drink, get you cleaned up, and we we’ll work out what to do next.
” >> What a kind man.
>> He was so kind and comes back to this again.
He was a boy.
Like and and like it’s silly, but like I I look at it now.
We got to his house and, you know, he’s married.
He’s got two little kids.
He was a couple of years older than me, you know, like he was he was such a a young man with a young wife and a young family.
And I I remember him having us into his home and and them getting us, you know, bottled water and his wife sort of being like, “What’s happened?” And we told her and she just burst into tears.
And I was like, “Yeah, you poor thing.
Like, you know, this is block from your home.
Like, your home’s been ruined.
Like, I obviously this is why you’re crying.
” And she just cried because she was so sorry for us and what had happened to us.
And she was just so apologetic and, you know, these two little girls came up and they were really upset and it was just the most devastating scene.
and that that their first inclination was obviously you’ve come to our our country and this has happened to you and I guess the the guilt and the shame and the sorrow that they felt that this had happened to us you know guests in their home.
>> Um it was really it was really touching and really heartening.
And then at some point while we were in his home, I the radio was playing and he said to us, “Wait, were you in a bombing in Cuda?” And we said, “No, we on Jimber and like just over there.
” And he’s like, “Oh, well the radio said there’s been a bombing in Cuda.
” And we sort of like, “Well, that’s where the rest of the family are.
That’s where all >> staying in Cuda.
>> That’s where everybody else is.
whatever’s happened here, it I think we’ve sort of come to the conclusion we we can’t do anything else here now.
No one else is going to come to us.
We we need to get back.
And so my memory is it was a taxi.
Although when I checked with Deepmar, he’s like, “I don’t know, mate.
I didn’t pay.
” So, might have been a car.
I don’t know.
Or maybe the taxi driver just took pity on us.
But we got in this taxi and we drove into Cuda and I just remember it being a very lonely road ahead and that the cars were just coming out of it and on a Saturday night in Cuda that’s not the way that traffic goes.
>> No.
>> So it was like okay there’s definitely something has gone down.
>> What an eerie experience this whole night like >> Yeah.
>> So you’d got back to the hotel, everyone else was fine.
>> Yes.
>> What was that reunion like? I found out afterwards that there had been sort of a mix of messages had been relayed to my family and you know I think about it now there’s this there’s this thing someone had explained to me recently how it’s like when you survive something like this you sort of start to think of the world in us and them and us being people who survived and everyone else who wasn’t there and therefore didn’t survive it and don’t understand a thing about what it is that you’ve been through and you get very much like that and it’s only been in the last couple of years that you start to go, “Yeah, but they survived something else as well.
” This like, you know, my brother was 10, my little sister was 13.
These children who thought their brother was dead and I I wasn’t.
It’s fine.
There’s a happy ending.
But there’s this 2-hour period where these little kids are going through this complete unknown and like I couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for them and the ways that it must have shaped their lives.
Um, so I just remember getting out of the taxi and my little brothers and sisters sort of swamping me, tears and and hugs and mom, you know, hugging me and then dad came up last, sort of let everyone else do their thing.
And then he hugged me and he hugged Demar and he said, “Oh, thank God you’re all right.
” And look, it may not have been the exact taxi, but he was straight then into a car to go off to hospital cuz dad’s a doctor.
and he just sort of thought I I need to help.
So he as soon as Demar and I were okay, that was like, okay, >> thank God now I need to go do what I need to do.
>> Do you remember how that night ended? >> It’s been great going through it again with my parents going through going through my statement to the AFP.
Um, and cuz like yeah, the there’s parts of it that I had completely forgotten until you go through and you read actually what what occurred.
And I was taken to a local medical center and they gave me an X-ray to see if I um had suffered any shrapnel wounds and they said, “Yeah, look, he’s he’s riddled with shrapnel.
” And um and it turned out they just had this really crappy old X-ray machine.
It just had specks all through it and they were like, “Yep, that’s that’s so I mean, God knows what other you didn’t I didn’t No, I was completely fine.
>> You weren’t completely fine because you did need multiple surgeries on your ear.
” >> Yes.
Yeah.
So, they check my ears and they’re like, “Oh, there’s a problem here.
” And um and I’ve also like I I’ve since uh learned this term, the invisible wounded.
And basically, it’s like look, you don’t have any physical injuries, but like your head is a mess, kid.
And that’s a whole other thing.
But you know, for the time being when it’s 48 first week, lives are at stake and that’s the most important thing.
And my life was not at stake.
I was fine in that regard.
So we went and when I came back the the the hotel was still sort of buzzing and basically that there’s there’s this group of us and we were watching different TVs and they were tuned into different channels so that people were getting different feeds and therefore we’re seeing different images and over the course of the night there was sort of this game of telephone of like oh I’ve seen you know the Scots I’ve seen the pillars I’ve seen the Griffiths and people are sort of slowly being accounted for and through that there was just this sort of situation and and and dad having been at the hospital he was able to call back and say look you know the following people are here and they’re accounted for and they’re okay and it it was the early hours of the Sunday morning maybe 2 or 3:00 am I remember going to bed and there was this sort of like, oh, between what we know, from what dad’s seen, and from what we’ve seen on TV, I think everyone’s accounted for and everyone’s okay.
And just sort of going to bed like, oh, that was horrible.
And at some point, some of the boys whose parents were missing, and I mean that was all parents at this stage.
if you’d been to Jimber and only the Griffiths had come back um they had made their way back to the hotel and but they were sort of pretty badly cut from you know the the shrapnel and the glass so they had then been taken to hospital.
So all those parents were in the hospital and uh and I just remember the boys sort of coming up at some stage and saying have you seen my parents? >> This is the Swinsky brothers.
>> Well I don’t remember exactly who it was.
I don’t think it was them.
I I think look there who it was exactly I don’t recall because at this stage there’s eight sets of parents missing >> technically missing.
Yeah.
Okay.
>> You know and and they just said look have you seen my parents? Are they okay? And I just said look I didn’t I didn’t see anyone.
I don’t know what’s happened but look at me.
I’m fine.
These were a bunch of pop gun terrorists.
They’ve turned up with a bag of fireworks.
They’ve given us an almighty scare.
like don’t worry, everyone is going to be okay.
Like this is this is just going to be a bad dream tomorrow.
And I it was what I believed.
>> 20 people died.
We’re not counting the the bombers in that.
There were three bombers as well.
Four Australians, three from your group.
>> Yes.
>> When did you find out about their deaths? >> The next day, um we went to the hospital.
Uh dad had called mom and said tell they call me Joseph tell Joseph uh to to get the passports and to to come to the hospital.
So Demar, Dane Griffiths and I uh we we got the passports and we got the taxi to the hospital to Sangar Hospital and uh we arrived and dad took us through to the ward where he sort of had all of our group and before we went in we said like what’s going on and he sort of rattled off all of the injuries that people had sustained and that put things in perspective of like Oh, this is not this is not a joke.
This is not some, you know, you know, little little fright tactic.
This is really really serious.
And he concluded by telling us that Jennifer Williamson had died.
And you know, that was the sort of the gut punch.
And um and we went into the to the ward and made our way through and just sort of saw with our own eyes just how badly banged up people were and these life-changing injuries that a lot of people had sustained.
And then later on that day, someone came around, a woman from the hotel who was trying to account for people, and she came around and said, “Look, we’ve got these lists.
those who are deceased, those who are here in hospital, and those who are still unaccounted for.
And we saw Jennifer Williams Williamson’s name in the unaccounted list, and we said, “She’s she’s she’s deceased.
” And then we asked, we said, “So, we still can’t find Colin and Fiona Winsky.
” And she just pointed down and their names were in the deceased column.
>> What a way to find out.
>> Yeah.
Yeah.
You have for the podcast spoken to Isaac and Ben, Colin and Fiona’s kids.
You’ve also spoken to the son, the father of the other Australian that died.
He was only 16.
What have those conversations been like? Because obviously this is all from your point of view.
What’s it been like reliving all of that through their eyes? I think when I started doing the podcast, I wanted to know what drove the people who did it to end their lives in the way that they did.
And then you speak to these people who lost the most important people in their lives.
And what drives you shifts from being well, why did you do what you did to end your life to how do you continue to live your life? and speaking to to to Terry Fitzgerald and and to Isaac and and Benolinsky, I don’t know, it becomes quite cliche to say it’s inspirational and that like it was, but it just it it doesn’t like it doesn’t touch the sides of the way it makes you feel um and the way that it changes you.
And I think I’d been like fairly maybe stoic.
I’ I’d come to the podcast determined to be uh I studied journalism.
I’ve been a journalist and and I was like the the way that I’m going to come at this is as a journalist.
I don’t want to come in and talk about feelings.
I want to get to facts and and and reality and like what what what happened.
And maintaining that element of detachment was really helpful.
And it also over the time that it took me to do it, I think it really helped me to sort some things out in my own head without realizing that was what was happening.
>> Yeah.
>> And the only time I remember breaking down was after speaking to Terry Fitzgerald.
I think having kids of your own shifts things and just the depth of the loss and I don’t know the the bravery and the the fortitude to go on you you know you question your own abilities and I don’t know the depth of what you’re capable of and to see what other people can manage in the most horrific circumstances.
Yeah, inspirational isn’t it’s not a big enough word.
Brendan was 16 and he died in the cuda explosion.
So he wasn’t part of your group.
>> No.
>> So that story would have been completely new to you.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
And it was the whole thing was it was really really difficult to get answers.
Um I thought I would basically just sort of like I’ll call the AFP and they’ll be like Joe we’ve been waiting.
So here’s what happened.
That’s not what happened at all.
Um, and I can understand from their perspective being a little bit like, mate, this happened nearly 20 years ago.
Like, what do you mean you want to know answers? And and basically, I came and asked a bunch of questions that they were sort of not in a position to answer.
And I was told at one point they were like, “Look, it’s an ongoing investigation.
” And I’m like, >> of 2005.
I don’t know about that.
Hey, um I feel like you’ve either got your answers by now or you don’t.
>> Yeah.
>> And I I really wanted to know and I wanted to know some nitty-gritty stuff.
You know, >> I knew 20 people had died in three bombings, but how many people had died in which bombings and when had they occurred? Because I started to think like, all right, so what bombs went off when? And okay, was there an intention from the two bombs that went off on Jimberan that it was like okay bomb goes off here and then the second bomb goes off later because people will run in that direction and then it will maximize the death and damage because more people will come towards it.
So just these like it may seem like small detail but to me they answered bigger questions >> and such detail was was not forthcoming and I can as I say I can understand they also sort of said the AFP were like >> for us to give you some of the answers that you’re asking for we need to go through these 20-year-old files from a time when things were not digitized and the amount of redactions that that that we’re going to have to do just to make it available to you because there’s investigative and also So, um, you know, the things that the terrorists have done just there’s a bunch of things that we can’t tell you straight off the bat because that’s just not the way that the world works.
I was I was very frustrated by that sort of response.
And you know then luckily enough I was able to find a bunch of other people that were sort of the next rung down these you know amazing um like university academics and people who worked in uh like Indonesian think tanks and really worked on international terrorism and then finally um speaking to to David Craig who led the investigation and he in his book had spoken to Terry Fitzgerald and I asked him I said do you think maybe you could contact Terry for me and through David I was able to contact Terry and speak to him and he’s written his own book uh which he self-published about what happened and and I suppose is also just a beautiful tribute to his son and it’s not just about how he died but how he lived and so yeah I was able to sort of understand if not how all 20 people passed away and it it gnores at me but I also understand that like I I wanted to know the names of the Indonesian people who died.
I was, it always has upset me that it’s 20 people died, four Australians, 16 others.
And I’m like, but who were these 16 others? >> And I’ve gone about trying to piece it together.
And >> there have been a number of occasions where I’ve sort of asked and eventually the the response I got that I could understand was like, this is a privacy issue.
We can’t just give you the names of people.
like there’s stuff that’s in the public domain and you can find out your answers there, but we can’t.
We would have to ask these families, are you happy for us to tell this random Australian guy if uh you know the names of your deceased loved ones? So, I can understand it from that perspective, but it still bothers me that I don’t know these people with whom I have a kinship and yet I don’t even know their name, who they were, where where they passed away.
>> Why did you decide to do this now 20 years on? >> I don’t know.
It’s It’s really >> Has it always been just in the back of your head that as a journalist one day I might and now you’re finally ready? >> It defined me for a little while.
>> Uh you know I was that kid from Bali particularly in Newcastle.
>> Mhm.
>> I appreciated it until I didn’t and then I was determined to be like you know what if you don’t want it to define you then you need to stop talking about it.
Just let it fade away and if you let it fade away then nobody’s going to bring it up.
And I was living in Newcastle.
I moved to Sydney and that really helped it to fade away.
>> Yeah.
>> And then I moved to England and that really helped it to fade away.
>> And I came back to Australia and I was working as a freelance writer and I was doing a bunch of uh ghost writing.
Basically, it was just CEOs and executives and whatnot, and I’d write opinion pieces for them and, you know, various uh you know, basically you you take whatever you can get.
I’d done well enough as a journalist that I had gone back to uni to become a lawyer where I was like, I am never going to earn enough money writing under my own name to provide for a family.
And then I started writing under other people’s names and I was like, oh, this is how you make money.
You just have to not be yourself.
And so I started yeah ghost riding and and then when I would go to the pub or I’d you know be out at a party or whatever it was and people would say what do you do for a living? I’d say I’m a ghostriter and they’d go you should ghostrite my autobiography.
I have had the most amazing life and I’d go oh yeah and they’d tell me about their amazing life and I’d go that’s that’s pretty amazing.
>> But I’m sitting on something bigger.
>> Mine’s kind of crazier than that.
And I I wouldn’t respond to Oh okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That’s wild.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, you know, here’s what I charge.
Do you want to, you know, and then they’d go, “Oh, oh, okay.
” And I go, “Yeah, no, no, no.
” You know, you get the money together, we’ll talk.
But it that that really did start to make me think like, “Hang on, there’s this huge story here.
” And then I also started to go, I don’t know any of the detail.
And if I don’t know any of the detail, that means nobody knows any of the detail.
Because if anyone’s going to know, it’s going to be the people that were there.
And it’s just so broadly overlooked and misunderstood or not understood at all that I sort of started to think like, well, what if I’m the one that finds it out? And yeah, I think there’s that thing, you know, if if you’ve got a story that nobody else has written before, it’s not because no one’s interested, it’s cuz no one’s written it before.
>> So for the 20 years, who did you think had done the bombings? Because when you get into the nitty-gritty of your It’s It’s so complicated.
>> Yeah.
So did you just think it was terrorists? Did you know it was like did what were the details you knew? >> So it had always just been I suppose a bit of a handwave of it’s Jamar’s lame.
They’re this terrorist network that exists throughout Indonesia.
They did the 2002 Bali bombing.
They’ve done other bombings.
Then they’ve done this bombing and that’s that’s sort of all you need to know.
And these two names had come up very early on in the piece.
And it was uh not in top and Asari Husen and like I I remember reading their names in the paper you know within a week and it was like JI members not in Top and Asar Husen and they weren’t the leaders of Jamaris Lamea um but they were highly placed um field commanders you know like the guys who led the whole thing I guess had a public face and had names that were wellknown and therefore weren’t getting their hands dirty.
Yeah.
>> Hey, we heard about that and it’s a real shame and maybe you had it coming and you’d sort of be like, “Oh, [ __ ] you.
” But that’s not the kind of thing that you end up going to prison for is saying like, you know, you you deserve what came your way.
Whereas >> Nordin and Ahari, it was more like, no, these guys, we don’t know where they are.
They’re on the run.
They are Indonesia’s most wanted and they’ve struck again.
So I was aware that they were the people that the authorities were looking for, but I was just of the understanding that it’s just a case of and they’re Jamaris and and that’s just what it is.
>> What surprised you the most about digging into their backgrounds and finding out more about them >> because you really humanized them.
That’s what surprised me.
They’ve got wives, kids.
>> Yeah.
>> They went to university.
They were both really really smart.
Um you know Ahari is Dr.
Ahari.
He had a PhD that he earned in reading in the UK.
You know he went to uni here in Adelaide then he was in Malaysia then he went to the UK where he earned his PhD.
You couldn’t claim that either of them were ignorant of what they were doing.
These were men of the world um educated and they had made a series of very firm decisions not only about what they were going to do but what they weren’t going to do in terms of be family men look after you know the children that they had brought into this world with the women that they claimed to have loved enough to have stood up in front of their god and said I you know I do you know nin top was married three times and had multiple kids and he just continued to uh you know live the life that he lived and and destroy the lives that he destroyed.
And I thought that it was really important to get that across because the world is such a complex place and people are very complex and the idea that it’s just like bad guys do bad things.
It it’s it’s so much more nuanced than that.
>> This is probably too big an a question, but why did they do that bombing? >> What was their goal? >> I mean >> terror.
Yeah, that’s and by that stage after the first barley bombing, Jamaris Lamir splined and there were those within Ji and Ji had was massive already.
It was broken up into four what they call Mantikis and Mantiki 4 was actually headquartered here in Australia.
>> Oh.
>> And it was primarily a fundraising um division but they also had plans.
there’s, you know, there’s there are people and the plans never came to fruition, thank God, but they had, you know, plans for violence here on these shores.
The the other three were divisions spread out throughout Southeast Asia.
But by dividing them up into these four different mantikis meant that they had different aims and they went about them in methods that were unknown to one another.
And so that meant that there was if if someone were to be infiltrated in Mantiki 1, it wouldn’t compromise what was going on in in any of the other three.
You know, you just know what’s going on within your own little division.
And within that, there’s cells as well.
So, you know, even within Mantiki one, it’s not like everyone knows everything.
It’s all there are cells and that helps to keep things very much compartmentalized and stops people from, you know, spilling the beans too far and wide about what happens next.
And I mean why they did what they did is I mean it goes it it runs so deep.
I thought initially that it was just like because 911 happened and then there was obviously the US, you know, invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq and there was this series of incidents that that led up to what happened in 2005.
And then I went into it and it’s like, oh no, it like there was a Christmas Eve bombing in 2000 that really set this set of plans in motion, but what led up to that bombing had been going on since the ’90s.
And actually what had led up to that had gone on since the 80s.
There had been plans for a Bali bombing in the 80s and they had been trying to bring a bomb into Bali on a bus and horrifically for the people that were on the bus.
The bomb went off on the bus while it was still on Java.
So a bunch of people died on a bomb on a bus that was bound for Bali.
This was in the 80s.
And but they’d started this school network that where all these kids had come through and became the the terrorists who did what they did.
That started in the ‘ 70s and the guys that actually did that had met in the ’50s and it had all begun in the 1940s when Indonesia was like it just goes back so far and that the the roots of it are so deep that like trying to grapple with like this singular question of why it happened like there is no one thing.
It is it’s this massive pastiche of reasons and and if you’re brought up in that and people are as I say like there’s a whole boarding school network.
There were dozens of these schools and if you’ve been brought up understanding these decades of of oppression and injustice that has been going on around you.
you start to at least understand if not give I don’t know what the word is but basically where I’m saying like I don’t agree with you but I get I I can understand how you got to where you got to >> so it’s not like it’s an attack on tourists it’s not an like it’s it’s much more complicated than that >> they did it in Bali for the simple reason that Bali is far more famous than anywhere else in Indonesia you know Bali has got this global tourism um trade, you know, people come from, isn’t it in Eat, Pray, Love, like like Julia Roberts has been there, guys? It’s it’s a big deal.
Bali is this globally famous tourism um hub and people go to Bali.
>> More people would probably know the word like I knew Bali before I knew Indonesia.
>> Yeah.
And it wasn’t until like maybe until we went there, you know, a couple of years before maybe you know the first Ballay bombing that I came to understand that oh Bali’s part of Indonesia like it is it is this sort of you know as I say the most famous aspect of that country and so there was an element for them bombing Bali.
The plan was let’s make a statement that gets global recognition and and it worked.
>> You know there’s uh you know George W.
Bush, you know, made a gave a message of condolence.
Vladimir Putin sent a telegram of condolence.
>> Whoa.
>> Like this was this was this big international event.
Uh so in that regard, you know, the reason they hit Bali was because it was it was the big name.
It was the the most famous place to hit whilst still being in Indonesia and therefore having the uh like the the possibilities and I suppose the ease is the wrong word but basically like they smuggled bombs on buses into Bali from Java and by being within that same country it it’s like all right take it to the famous place that’s still within an area where you’re not going to need a passport.
You mentioned towards the start of our interview that one of your goals was to kind of find out more about these suicide bombers and understand them.
Why would someone do that? >> Did you get more of an understanding of those men? >> It was a really big moment when I just learned his name.
M >> I like I remember you know this person made this choice in 2005 and it was sometime in 2021 I’m lying in bed and I’d been going down you know been been investigating this thing and for a number of months and I still didn’t have such basic information as these people’s names and I remember lying in bed going through this PDF and there it was.
Sic photos.
And I’m like, he’s got a name.
That’s him.
He He’s a real person.
He’s like, this is a human being, you know, with with a name and I guess a family and all the things that the rest of us have.
And I remembered thinking, I’m going to wake up my wife and tell her.
And then I was like, >> does she need to know this information? >> Wait till the morning.
Yeah.
But like it felt big for you.
>> It was it was an enormous moment.
And just to sort of think that the way that life has changed in you know like this this kid from 2005 and it’s not until you know I’m a married man in the house that I bought with the woman that I love all these you know almost two decades later that that just the simple fact that this person had a name comes into you know my understanding and then to sort of try to grapple with it.
As I say, it’s it’s just I think it’s the ecosystem that you’re brought up in that you you have this decades and you know, I say it goes back to the 40s.
I was listening to a podcast talking about what went on with the Dutch East Indies company in like the 1600s and and there was nothing about it that has like this direct route, but just listening to the stories they were telling about the way that the Dutch East Indies Company came in and just ravaged islands in Indonesia and islands that now have these strong terrorist links.
I was like, “Oh my god.
” Like, it doesn’t start in the ‘ 40s.
like this goes all the way back.
And that’s when you start to sort of go, well, if it’s been hundreds of years of of life in this country being infiltrated and then colored by what has happened, you can start to grapple with the concept that it’s like, yeah, so some people think that maybe violence is the answer.
And it sounds like these young men, cuz they were young men, were so radicalized that it’s not like it sounds like they weren’t scared or this was their purpose to do this.
Yeah.
I I really wanted to get my hands on I was unable to get my hands on the videos that they created where they they gave their last will and testament.
And this was filmed uh you know a matter of days before they they went and did what they did.
And I’ve got you know there snippets of it have been published.
Um, and they all sound really resolute and they have this and and one of the things that really blew my mind was this sort of logic that occurs to them and that has been drumed into them.
And so one of the things that was just like wait what was that one of the bombers in his last will of testament said to his family like listen you know this going to do what I’m doing and I’m proud of what I’m doing and I’m you know they they were doing it for their families because it was you and your loved ones are guaranteed entry into paradise but you got to pay your debts.
So one of them he was like I’m doing this for all of us and and also I actually owe this guy 50 bucks.
So, can you like obviously I’m simplifying, but in his last testament said to his family like, “Make sure you pay my debt to such and such down the road who I owe money to cuz otherwise this doesn’t work.
” And I’m like, I I’m not ridiculing or or making light of a person’s faith, but at the same time, I’m like, what what I I can’t understand how you could believe that there is a a a higher power that would grant you eternal paradise for the act of killing other people on condition that you’ve paid someone back the money that you owe them.
>> Wild.
>> Like, what a strange loophole to have to close.
It’s like, oh, you’ve done the the most, you know, the the most amazing thing that you can do by this act, but oh, you owe a guy some money.
Uh, no.
Sorry.
Hey, you’re out.
>> Yeah.
It doesn’t really add up, does it? >> I Yeah, you really Yeah, they’re And it does.
Then you start to sort of say I have spoken to people uh amazing group called uh the victims of victims of terrorism Australia voter and have uh since struck up friendships with a number of people from who have survived other terrorist attacks.
And I was speaking to uh Louisa Hope who survived the uh >> siege.
>> The siege.
Yeah.
And I said, you know, I I spoke about uh the the man in the siege, Monace, and I said, you know, a mad man.
And she said, he wasn’t he wasn’t a mad man.
Like, he was within his right mind.
You know, he knew what he was doing.
And it was only after the fact that I sort of realized what I meant by that is like these people aren’t crazy.
Their logic is warped.
>> Yeah.
>> Where it’s like you’re you’re acting in a completely rational uh fashion.
It’s just that the rationality that you’re existing within that’s the part that doesn’t make sense.
That’s the part that’s mad is that like if you think this this final act of yours is the right thing to do, then there’s a madness somewhere within the logic that your whole life revolves around that that does not make sense.
>> That’s a really interesting way to like think about it.
Has doing this finding out all this information has it been helpful for you? cathartic, traumatizing, >> d all of the above.
>> Yeah.
>> Um I look I >> it no I I shouldn’t say that it hasn’t been traumatizing.
It’s been it’s been hard at times.
It was a dark road.
I’m so lucky to have my wife who when things were at their darkest, I wasn’t worried about the light at the end of the tunnel cuz she was holding my hand.
And yeah, like she’s an amazing woman.
People asked me, they said like, “Why did you do this?” >> Yeah.
>> And I don’t know that I have a great answer.
Except that knowing what I know now and being able to sort of place a logic around it.
Even if that logic is completely illogical to me, it does help me to understand things better.
And I think you you’re only ever going to have greater peace if you can understand things.
And so it being this black box, this disaster that occurred and that shaped so much of my life was never going to be helpful.
And just to be able to spend some time really delving into it and finding out some of the, as I say, the logic, getting the names, just understanding actually what happened has really it has it’s been a a really it’s been helpful for me.
And like from the perspective of a journalist, for someone who spends their life, you know, telling other people’s stories to go delving into it, I was like, “Oh my god, what a crazy story.
” And like the amount of stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor is nuts.
Like the guys who did Barley one and were then on death row had phones and laptops smuggled into their cells while they were on death row and they were in contact with not in top and as Hari and they didn’t do the logistical planning but were in contact with them and able to help them to uh work out how to brainwash and and infiltrate the minds of the kids that kids the the people that did Barley 2.
So like just something as as wild as that.
It didn’t make it in.
And the reason they were able to smuggle in the phones and the laptops was because these guys who again are on death row brainwashed one of the prison guards and he was the one that was bringing in the phones and the laptops for them to use.
>> Wow.
>> Like and >> so many steps.
>> So many steps.
and you start to then grapple with just how effective these people are, what they’re doing in terms of giving people a purpose.
And it it really made me think about terrorism in a different way.
And I don’t I don’t want to go into what would be, but I’ve looked at some of the interviews, well, the footage and and the journalism that’s been done about the the people that did what they did in Bondi, and I see this this kid, this teenage kid, and I just think you give a person who doesn’t know who they are a purpose, and it’s such a powerful thing, and that power can be horribly misused.
Have you been back to Bali? >> I haven’t.
>> Any desire? >> Yes and no.
I haven’t been back to a lot of countries, you know.
And I know that sounds silly, uh, but, you know, in the the years that have followed, I’ve Bali, what happened in Bali never stopped me from living my life.
you know, I’ve had this amazing life and I’ve traveled really broadly um and have gone through huge parts of Southeast Asia and and have had amazing times.
Um and there’s this part of me that’s like, well, if I’m going to go on holiday, I want to go somewhere new.
I want to go see something different.
I want to experience something something else.
And this other part of me that says, you should go back to Bali says, yeah, but what kind of holiday is that going to be? and >> I have to dig up all my old trauma.
>> Yeah.
Yeah.
Go and feel unsafe and be traumatized.
And like I would not take my kids there.
And that’s not fair to say because that’s a me thing, not a barley thing.
Yeah.
>> That’s that’s I would just sort of feel within myself like I would feel completely unsafe.
And if I feel unsafe, I you know, I I don’t want my my babies to be unsafe.
And again, that’s there’s an there’s a lack of logic there that I completely acknowledge and I uh, you know, and I’m and I and I’m apologetic because the Balines were so amazing in the aftermath, you know, just how kind and generous they were.
They deserve so much better than for someone to sort of say like, I I can’t go back, but thus far I can’t.
And can’t is the wrong word.
Thus far, I haven’t.
And and selfishly when the 20th anniversary rolled around, I thought, okay, there’s an opportunity here for the Australian government to pay for me to go back to Bali.
And I was like, well, if I’m going to go on a free holiday and I leave the kids with my mom and dad, maybe that’s the way to do it where it’s like, well, at least I didn’t spend my own money to feel this uncomfortable and maybe I could put some ghosts to bed.
I don’t know.
But when the 20th anniversary rolled around, I ended up sort of um leading the charge a little bit for the memorial that happened in Newcastle.
And by the time the offer was put forward to do you want to go to Barley, I was like, “No, I need to I need to bring home what’s happening in Newcastle.
” So, >> I’ve not been back.
I, as I say, that’s that’s a me thing.
That’s not a barley thing.
That’s you know, >> it doesn’t sound like you need to go back.
>> No, I don’t think so.
M >> um I think I’d like to at some point, but at the same time, it’s not it doesn’t eat at me.
I don’t feel like I’ve I’ve lost out or I’ve missed out.
Um and I’m really proud to say that so so many of the rest of the Newcastle group and survivors in general have gone back.
And you know, the the story concludes with Kim Griffiths who survived.
He went back like less than a month later.
He immediately just just said, “I, you know, I love this this place and I love these people and I can’t let this stop me from going back.
So, if I go back straight away, it doesn’t become a mountain that I can’t climb.
” And he went he went back within a matter of weeks and was back again dozens of times.
>> Thank you to Joe for telling us his story.
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True Crime Conversations is hosted by me, Gemma Bath.
Our senior producer is Tarly Blackman.
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And there’s been audio design by Jacob Brown.
Thanks so much for listening.
I’ll be back next week with another true crime conversation.
