Three Islamist militants convicted over the Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people awaited execution yesterday as Indonesia stood guard against a feared extremist backlash.
A source at the Nusakambangan island prison off southern Java said Amrozi, 47, his brother Mukhlas, 48, and attack strategist Imam Samudra, 38, had been placed in isolation and the execution order had been delivered.
”The letter ordering the execution was submitted at 9pm on Friday,” the source said.
He did not say whether the letter gave a precise time for the executions.
Stunned residents at Amrozi’s and Mukhlas’s home village of Tenggulun, East Java, woke yesterday to find an “H” had been painted overnight between the maize fields, where a helicopter from Nusakambangan might land with the bodies.
Local TV also reported that checkpoints had been set up around Samudra’s home town of Serang, and that a grave had been prepared.
Security forces have been placed on high alert across the country as a precaution against an explosion of Islamist anger at the first executions to be carried out under Indonesia’s anti-terror law.
Sensitive areas like foreign embassies, tourist spots, shopping malls and ports were under close guard. On the mainly Hindu resort island of Bali, 3,500 police were on the streets, officials said.
The 2002 bombings targeted nightspots packed with Western tourists, killing more than 160 foreigners including 88 Australians. The bombers said they were retaliation for US-led aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq.
They were convicted and sentenced in 2003 under a new anti-terror law that was applied retroactively, leading anti-death penalty campaigners to question the legality of their executions.
All three have said they are eager to embrace “martyrdom” for their radical jihadist ideology, while launching a series of failed appeals and legal challenges that have delayed their date with the firing squad.
All executions in Indonesia are carried by firing squad, usually in the dead of night at undisclosed locations.
Defense lawyer Wirawan Adnan said the government was eager to limit coverage of the execution and it likely would not follow the usual practice of giving the families three days’ notice.
“I believe it’s going to happen unannounced. It’s just the way it is because they don’t want the public to know and they’re going to do it secretly,” he said.
Officials have not confirmed a date for the executions other than “early November.”
The bombers, members of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network, have expressed no remorse for the carnage they unleashed six years ago.
In a string of media appearances and interviews the authorities have allowed them to conduct from prison, they have parroted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s worldview of a militant Islam at war against an evil West.
Mukhlas claims to have met bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and named his son Osama. They have promised retribution from God and their followers in the event of their execution.
In Tenggulun, the family of Mukhlas and Amrozi — a former mechanic known as the “smiling assassin” for his childish courtroom antics — remained unmoved.
“If they die because they are standing up for the religion they will be placed in paradise,” 52-year-old elder brother Muhammed Chozin said.
“The family isn’t angry with the brothers, we don’t want to meddle in their affairs. If they totally believe in their cause, then why not?”
Chozin said that although he supported his brothers he would discourage other family members from following their path of violence.
“If I find out then I will tell them the bigger priority in jihad [holy war] is education. If they have faith that their way or their [violent] action is correct, that is their right, I won’t blame them,” he said.
The 70-year-old mother of the two bombers said on Friday night her sons were right to “kill infidels.”
“I don’t cry. I leave it all to God,” Tariem said after returning from praying at the mosque.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
BIGGER ROLE: Beijing has said it maintains an impartial stance on the war in Ukraine, but by training Russian troops, China is far more involved than previously known China’s armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year, and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine, according to three European intelligence agencies and documents seen by Reuters. While China and Russia have held a number of joint military exercises since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing has repeatedly said that it is neutral in the conflict and presents itself as a peace mediator. The covert training sessions, which predominantly focused on the use of drones, were outlined in a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on
RSS