International News

Bali bombers excecuted
Radicals supporters call for revenge
Agence France-Presse . Tenggulun, Indonesia


Three Indonesian Islamists were executed by firing squad early Sunday for the Bali bombings which killed 202 people, sparking calls for revenge from their radical supporters.
‘At around 00:15am (1715 GMT Saturday) the three convicted men on death row, Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra, were executed by firing squad,’ attorney general’s office spokesman Jasman Panjaitan said.
Amrozi, 47, his brother Mukhlas, 48, and ringleader Imam Samudra, 38, were killed with shots to the heart on a hill near their prison on Nusakambangan island off southern Java, he said.
They refused an offer of blindfolds and cooperated fully with their executioners.
‘All three convicted men were very cooperative and didn’t resist at all. The families have also been cooperative and sincere,’ Panjaitan said.
A source in the prison said they shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is greater) as they were escorted out of their isolation cells shortly before midnight on Saturday.
The 2002 attack targeted packed nightspots on the holiday island of Bali, killing more than 160 foreigners including 88 Australians, as well as 38 Indonesians.
Until the end, the bombers expressed no remorse for their ‘infidel’ victims and claimed they wanted to die as ‘martyrs’ for their dream of an Islamic caliphate spanning much of Southeast Asia.
Survivors and relatives of the victims expressed a mixture of relief and sadness at the news.
‘I guess the overwhelming feeling isn’t joy because they’re dead, but it’s definitely relief that we don’t have to continue with the circus,’ said Trent Thompson, whose brother Clint was among the Australians killed.
Tumini, who worked at Paddy’s bar which was destroyed by one of the bombs, said: ‘I’m feeling happy. I don’t have any resentment towards them. I only hope that this problem (of Islamic radicalism) can be solved at its roots.’
The bombers, members of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network, were sentenced in 2003 but launched at least four failed legal challenges which delayed their executions and kept them in the media spotlight.
Hundreds of supporters briefly clashed with police as the bodies of Mukhlas and Amrozi — the latter dubbed the ‘smiling assassin’ for his courtroom antics — arrived by helicopter at their village of Tenggulun in east Java.
There were similar scenes in the west Java town of Serang as Samudra’s body was paraded to the graveyard, shrouded in a black cloth bearing a Koranic inscription in Arabic.
‘There’ll probably be retaliation. What is clear is that no drop of Muslim blood is free. It has consequences,’ said Ganna, 26, who travelled 90 kilometres from Jakarta to Serang to show his support.
The vast majority of Indonesian Muslims have little sympathy for militants, and even among the angry mourners in Serang one man said the bombers’ ‘jihad’ was wrong.