Families head to Guantanamo Bay to seek justice for the Bali bombings
Frank Heffernan thought his daughter, Megan, was in South Korea, where she was working as an English teacher, when he heard news of the devastating terrorist attack on the Indonesian island of Bali on October 12, 2002.
Frank Heffernan and his wife, Bonnie Hall, at their home in Melbourne, Florida. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her,” Heffernan said of his daughter, Megan, who was killed in the 2002 terrorist attack. (New York Times)
Then, to his surprise, he received a call from the State Department notifying him that Megan Heffernan, 28, who was born and raised in Alaska and an avid traveler, was among 202 people killed in the bombings carried out by an Al-Qaeda affiliate in an adjacent bar and club in Bali. She was spending a vacation there with some friends.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her,” Heffernan said, wiping his eyes with a tissue at his home in Florida, according to a New York Times report on Sunday.
Megan Heffernan has died at the age of 28 – she grew up in Alaska and had a passion for travel (New York Times)
In a brutal, indiscriminate terrorist attack, the bombing killed tourists and workers from 22 countries who happened to be in a commercial area, including 38 Indonesians. Among the dead were Australian and British citizens who were there to attend a rugby match, and Americans who were keen on surfing. Meghan and two Korean friends were out visiting a number of tourist attractions when the bombs exploded.
Entrance to Camp One at Guantanamo Bay (archive – circulated)
Now, 20 years later, dozens of their relatives are heading to Guantanamo Bay, in the US-controlled part of Cuba. There, the dead are scheduled to appear before a military jury tasked with issuing prison sentences for two Malaysian men who admitted their involvement in conspiring in the bombings.
Among the participants on this trip to Guantanamo is Heffernan. As for Megan’s mother, Sandra, she died as a result of being infected with the Corona virus 3 years ago.
Heffernan said that he would express to the court the true loss he had suffered by losing “his daughter, who is a very wise and religious girl, and loves to travel.”
He said he had confidence in the court — the judge and military jury that are expected to meet next week — and its ability to render a fair ruling.
“We don’t even know if these two men were involved,” Bonnie Hall, Heffernan’s current wife, said of the prisoners the United States has held since 2003, first with the CIA and then since 2006 at Guantanamo Bay. ».
In an interview, Heffernan said he did not try to understand the reason behind the attack.
“Whatever the corrupt and twisted logic behind the bombing, whether it was due to government, religion or national differences, the bombing cost the lives of 202 people,” he wrote in a statement submitted to the court.
He added that the attack left “eternal pain for thousands of relatives and friends of the victims.”
It is worth noting that prosecutors never proposed the death penalty in the Bali bombings case, which includes 3 defendants, unlike the case of the September 11 attacks in Guantanamo. Now, with the defendants pleading guilty this week, an Indonesian man known as Hambali will appear in court as the “operational mastermind” and member of Jemaah Islamiyah, which orchestrated the bombing. The trial could begin next year.
Heffernan said he became an opponent of the death penalty years ago after visiting Vatican City, where he met Pope John Paul II. He added that it was an epiphany that brought him into line with “anti-death penalty theology.”
He added: “Besides, since I am an old man, I realize that if you are given enough grace to live this long, you can look back and regret the things you did before.”
Every year since her death, Heffernan has marked his daughter’s birthday, on December 12, by donating a set of purple clothes, her favorite colour, for the priest to wear to celebrate Mass. Each piece of clothing carried a small card commemorating his daughter.
By the time of her death, Megan Heffernan had skied in Argentina, taken a high school trip to Greece, and visited Ireland with her older brother Michael, younger sister Maureen and her husband. Their father paid for the trip, but he did not accompany them for fear of spoiling the fun atmosphere of the trip.
Meghan traveled throughout Asia to Japan, Taiwan and Thailand. Her father said she went from China to Vietnam on riverboats across the Mekong River and took a bus to Hanoi. Heffernan had visited some of these places during the Vietnam War when he was working as an army helicopter pilot in 1967 and 1968, and he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his bravery. “She would go somewhere and tell us about her trip later,” Heffernan said.
The State Department contacted Heffernan within a day or so of the bombings. Heffernan learned that his daughter was on vacation in Indonesia, at a time when rescue workers in Bali, located 13 time zones away, were trying to identify survivors, injured and missing people.
In the next call, State Department officials requested Meghan’s dental records. Heffernan said that’s when he began praying for forgiveness for any mistakes he made along the way in raising his eldest daughter.
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2024-01-22 17:26:09
