Lawyers for the three Islamists facing execution for the Bali bombings that killed 202 people filed a desperate last-minute appeal yesterday to save them from the firing squad.
But prosecutors said the appeal was invalid as the bombers — Amrozi, 47, his brother Mukhlas, 48, and Imam Samudra, 38 — had already exhausted their legal options and must now die in line with their 2003 sentences.
“No more appeals can be accepted because the limit is only one,” a spokesman for Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office said, even though the bombers have had at least three appeals considered by the Indonesian courts.
PHOTO: AFP
Lawyer Imam Asmara Hadi said the appeal filed in Bali’s Denpasar District Court rested on the bombers’ claim they had not been properly informed of the rejection of their previous petition.
“We have lodged an appeal because we haven’t received a copy of the Supreme Court rejection of our previous appeal,” Hadi said.
Police stepped up security around Cilacap port connecting southern Java to the high-security Nusakambangan prison island where the bombers are believed to be just days or even hours away from execution.
Heavily armed police extended a no-go zone around the port and barred all traffic to the island in the latest sign that the executions are imminent.
Security has been tightened across the mainly Muslim archipelago because of concerns about revenge attacks from Islamist fanatics and the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network, believed to be responsible for the Bali carnage.
The bombings of tourist nightspots on the resort island in 2002 killed more than 160 foreigners including 88 Australians, as well as 68 Indonesians.
Nusakambangan prison chief Bambang Winahyo said the bombers appeared to be calm and ready to die, in line with their repeated assertions that they want to be “martyrs” for their cause of creating a Southeast Asian caliphate.
“They’re in good condition, healthy. It seems they’re facing this calmly,” he said.
Relatives and lawyers were barred from visiting the bombers at Nusakambangan early yesterday as they did not have permission from Jakarta, officials said.
Ali Fauzi, the younger brother of Amrozi and Mukhlas, blasted the authorities for refusing to let him see the bombers for a last time. He said he would leave Cilacap later yesterday if permission did not arrive within hours.
“I’m very disappointed with the Attorney General’s Office for not allowing us to go in as my brothers have been put in an isolation room” ahead of their execution, he said.
“I want to pass a message from my family to Amrozi and Mukhlas. My mother said for them to be patient, to be sincere and to accept their fate.” He said.
“But she also said that if I can bring them home alive and free, then I should bring them home,” he said, laughing.
The 2002 Bali attacks were the bloodiest in a sustained period of al-Qaeda-inspired jihadist violence in mainly moderate Indonesia. Bombings at the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta in 2003, the Australian embassy in 2004 and Bali again in 2005, among others, killed scores of people.
Jemaah Islamiyah is still active in plotting attacks across the region and the alleged mastermind of the Bali bombings, Malaysian extremist Noordin Mohammad Top, is still at large.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS