Evil and Innocence: the Bali bombing

Daily Telegraph ^ | November 29 2002 | MICHELLE CAZZULINO, CINDY WOCKNER and DAVID MURRAY

[knighthawk]

HE is the evil terrorist who masterminded the bombing that destroyed the lives of 87 Australians. She is the innocent child whose beloved parents were stolen from her.

Their paths should never have crossed. But when they did, the consequences for Candice Buchan, 15, were unthinkable.

Only hours after Imam Samudra's arrest, Indonesia's most wanted man – facing the death penalty for his role in the Bali bombings – appeared relaxed and unconcerned, despite being shackled and blindfolded. But in Sydney yesterday, with the pain and loneliness of the past seven weeks etched into her features, Candice said goodbye to three of the people she loved and trusted above all others in this world.

The deaths of her parents, Stephen and Gerardine Buchan and Stephen's sister Catherine Seelin, have robbed the only child of an immediate family.

The agony of suffering such a loss must be relentless.

If only relief for Candice came as easily as it does to Samudra, who appears in the Page 1 photo to be dozing, despite the blindfold and handcuffs on his hands and feet.

Since the photo was taken of Samudra, whose real name is Abdul Azis, he has confessed to being the chief architect, planner and executor of the October 12 bombings of the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar, which killed almost 200 people.

He has also admitted planning a string of Indonesian bombings in the past two years in churches and a Jakarta shopping mall, which have killed 19 people.

Now, according to Samudra's lawyers who have visited him several times since his arrest one week ago, Samudra is "ready to die" and is unrepentant about the blood that has been shed on his orders. He spent yesterday, at Jakarta's police headquarters where he is being held, under interrogation about his links with detained radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who is believed to be the spiritual leader of banned terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.

Bashir is suspected of involvement in the church bombings, along with Samudra.

Candice Buchan spent yesterday remembering the three people who gave her life and all the love in their hearts. Her aunt, Cathy Seelin, 45, was the big sister she never had. Her beloved parents, Gerardine, 46, and Steve, 47, were her heroes – a pair who shared with one another a love so great that not even death could tear them apart.

In particular, her dad, who had a habit of holding his only child's hand, will live on in the hearts of those who knew him best as a man who lived and died for the woman he loved.

In those first horrifying moments after the blast in the Sari Club that night, Steve realised Gerardine – his "Geg" – had become trapped under a steel beam that fell from the ceiling on to the dance floor.

There was no way of moving it, and with the walls collapsing in on them, Steve's friends told him they all had to get out.

But as witnesses have since recalled, there was never any question in his mind – he was not going anywhere without his wife.

Yesterday, his flower-laden coffin stood alongside those of his wife and sister, draped in an Australian flag at the front of their Malabar church.

[knighthawk]

Candice Buchan at the funeral
of her parents Stephen and Gerardine
Buchan and Catherine Seelin at
St Andrew's Catholic Church,
Malabar. Pic Craig Greenhill.

[knighthawk]

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