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Australian police had Bali bomb evidence fears
Australian police had serious fears Indonesian authorities were about to destroy crucial evidence from the Bali bombings because of Muslim burial traditions, former commissioner Mick Keelty has revealed.Mr Keelty was commissioner of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) at the time of the terror attacks carried out by Jemaah Islamiah. He was responsible for leading Australias response, including helping Indonesian police in their ultimately successful hunt for the perpetrators. But the former commissioner revealed there were fears that Indonesian authorities would destroy crucial clues because of the Muslim custom of burying the dead within 24 hours. He said, Muslims bury their dead within 24 hours, but we know that in our own experience in Western traditions if you have a murder in Sydney you could potentially leave the body in situ for 24 hours or more. There was that tension (in Bali) about cleaning up the crime scene very quickly. And some of the Indonesians are very good at that, they get on with things. Keelty said there were also fears that the federal police would not be able to give the Australian government and public a quick and proper explanation of what happened if the evidence was not analysed correctly. Keelty said, When theres bombs exploding, you cant discern one body from another Its very hard to identify people. We talked to Indonesia about the Interpol international standard, which was to have fingerprints or other forms of identification DNA and of course DNA identification takes a lot of time. Back here at home, people just wanted answers. People wanted to know whether their relatives were alive or dead. That was a very frustrating time at home. People wanted answers and wanted them straight away. He said the co-operation between Australia and Indonesia in the aftermath of the attack had become the envy of law enforcement agencies around the world, including Americas FBI. Posted by: ryuge 2012-10-06 |
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