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Chained
Italian man found in rice field
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Articles about Italy)
I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post/Denpasar
An Italian man, believed to be a victim of a violent crime,
was found on Monday morning lying semi-conscious in an isolated
rice field near Tibubeneng beach, some 10 kilometers north of
Bali's tourist area of Kuta.
The man was identified as Gabriel Paroli, 43, who, since Friday,
had been registered as a guest at Puri Tanah Lot Hotel in Legian.
He was found at around 6:30 a.m. by a local woman, Ni Nyoman
Sember, 40, who was on her way to feed her cows. Sember spotted
Paroli's twitching legs jutting out of a narrow ditch. Terrified
by the scene, Sember ran back to nearby Tegalgundul hamlet to
inform local leaders.
A group of men ran to check out the report. There they found
Paroli lying in a small ditch in the rice field. His hands were
tied with plastic cords and a padlocked metal chain. Another
strip of plastic cord bound his ankles and his mouth was gagged
with a handkerchief and a strip of duct tape.
Assisted by police officers, the villagers unbound Paroli and
rushed him to Sanglah Hospital, some 15 kilometers away.
"At that time, the victim was still able to speak although incoherently.
However, he fell unconscious upon his arrival at Sanglah," Bali
police spokesperson Sr. Comr. AS Reniban said.
As of late Monday, he was still in the intensive care unit.
A group of uniformed and plainclothes police officers stood
guard outside the ward, screening all visitors.
On Monday afternoon, the chief of the Bali Police crime investigation
division, Sr. Comr. DBM Suharya was seen visiting the victim.
But he refused to give any details about the ongoing investigation.
"We are working on it. Now we are going to Puri Tanah Lot Hotel
to interrogate the employees," he said on his way out.
So far, the police had questioned at least three witnesses,
including Sember.
One of the detectives, however, disclosed that there weren't
any open wounds observed on Paroli's body. "We found bruises
on several parts of his body, on his neck, behind one of his
ears, on the back of his head and on his leg. There was also
some minor bleeding from his nose," he said.
Moreover, bruises and scratches were also found on Paroli's
palms. "These suggest that Paroli tried to resist his attackers,"
he said.
He also revealed that before falling unconscious, Paroli had
repeatedly muttered a word. "He kept mumbling 'security, security',
we are trying to figure out what he meant by that," he admitted.
Paroli is the second Italian citizen in a week to fall victim
to a violent crime near Tibubeneng beach, a sparsely populated
area. On Oct. 27, an Italian woman, Rafaella Bacagli, 31, was
murdered and dumped in the area. Her body was found next to
a narrow dirt path to the beach. The police still do not have
any leads on the motive or the perpetrators of that homicide.
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