Bali bombing victims urge harsh sentences for Malaysian men for ‘savage destruction of life’

Perth resident Phil Britten, 43, recounted how his first holiday abroad turned into horror when seven of the 19 friends he had been travelling with were killed.

“I was the captain of the Kingsley Football Club, and we were all celebrating the end of a successful season of Australian Rules Football,” he said in his statement. “It was to be the trip of a lifetime. But for many of us, it ended up being the trip that either ended or forever changed our lives.”

Britten, then 22, was inside the Sari Club when a one-tonne bomb hidden in a van went off in front of the establishment. A suicide bomber also attacked the adjacent Paddy’s Pub , while a third explosion took place outside the US consulate in the nearby Renon district.

Bali bomber eyes pardon to continue anti-terror work, ‘tired’ after jail time

“After crawling out of the burning ruins and across a roof, I was taken to hospital by a family who found me, running in the middle of a road with skin hanging off my body in strips,” Britten said in his statement.

“But the hospital was by no means a place where I could survive as it was overwhelmed by the scale of those burned, dying, [with] missing limbs and bleeding out.”

Britten said he experienced burns to 60 per cent of his body and underwent multiple skin grafts and back operations. His rehabilitation took years, during which he had to wear full-length burn pressure garments and follow a regimen of “excruciating” physiotherapy.

“Mentally and emotionally, I wanted my life to end for years. It took all the strength that I had to physically survive, and then afterwards, it was a struggle to move beyond the trauma and nightmare of the ruins my life had been left in,” he added.

Britten urged the judge to punish Farik and Nazir to the fullest extent of the law.

“I ask the judge to place the full and maximum sentence possible to these two terrorists, who, by their own admission, participated in the most savage destruction of life possible,” Britten said.

Laczynski had been at the Sari Club the day before the bombing and left Bali the night of the attack, which he described as “the worst peacetime loss of Australian lives”.

“Please do not discount the memories of these victims by letting these people off with inappropriately light sentences. Please show these men exactly the same mercy they chose to show to 202 people, including 88 Australians and my five friends,” he wrote in his statement.

On Tuesday, the judge presiding over the case, Lieutenant Colonel Wesley Braun, ruled that victim-impact statements submitted by those who could not attend the court session would be provided to the jury while it deliberates the sentences for the two Malaysians. The men are expected to face a prison term of between 20 and 25 years, according to the details of a plea agreement.

Eleven relatives of victims were expected to give their statements in person on Wednesday, and as were two of Farik’s brothers.