Families Head to Guantánamo Bay Seeking Justice in Bali Bombing Case

Frank Heffernan thought his daughter Megan was in South Korea where she was working as an English teacher when he heard the news of a devastating terrorist attack on the Indonesian island of Bali on Oct. 12, 2002.

Then the State Department called.

Megan Heffernan, 28, who was born and raised in Alaska and had a passion for travel, was among the 202 people who were killed in the coordinated bombings carried out by an affiliate of Al Qaeda at a pub and nearby club in Bali. She had gone there with friends on a vacation.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think of her,” said Mr. Heffernan, mopping his eyes with a tissue at his home in Florida.

In the random, cruel fashion of terrorism, the bombing killed tourists and workers from 22 nations who happened to be in a commercial district, including 38 Indonesians. Among the dead were Australian and British citizens who were there for a rugby match, Americans passionate about surfing — and Megan and two Korean friends, who were out sightseeing when the bombs exploded.

Now, 20 years later, about a dozen relatives who carry the memory of the mostly forgotten attack are heading to another faraway place, Guantánamo Bay, in the U.S.-controlled portion of Cuba. There they will represent the dead for a military jury charged with deciding a prison sentence for two Malaysian men who pleaded guilty to conspiring in the bombings.