Australia angered by plans for new restaurant at 2002 Bali bombing site

Sari Club, one of the two sites targeted by a suicide bomber in 2002, will be replaced with a five-storey restaurant

Canberra has for years been trying to establish a Peace Park at Sari Club, where 88 Australians were among the 202 people killed

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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 11:04pm, 28 Apr 2019Updated: 10:18pm, 29 Apr 2019

This week, construction workers will begin tearing down what remains of the Sari Club building – one of the two sites targeted by a suicide bomber in the 2002 Bali blasts – to make way for a five-storey restaurant, in a project Australia has called “deeply distressing”.

The attack by the Jemaah Islamiah terror group, a regional arm of al-Qaeda, killed 202 people from more than 20 countries, with Australians making up many of the victims.

Canberra has for years been trying to establish a peace park at the site of the Sari Club, known as “Ground Zero”, to honour the lives of the 88 Australians killed in the bombings, without success.

The long-standing breakdown in negotiations led the land owner to apply for resource consents in January last year to build a Western-style restaurant on the site. The building, greenlit by the Badung regency government last December, is expected to feature a memorial for bombing victims on the top floor.

The ruins of the Sari Club seen in 2002 after the bomb attack. Photo: AP

“The decision by local Bali authorities to provide a permit for an entertainment complex on the site of the Bali Bombing where 88 Australians were murdered by terrorists at the Sari club site is deeply distressing,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Twitter last week.