Indonesia executes three Bali bombers (2nd Roundup)

Nov 9, 2008, 7:52 GMT

Jakarta - Indonesia early Sunday executed three Muslim militants convicted for their roles in the 2002 bombings in Bali that killed 202 people, mostly foreign visitors, officials and media reports said.

Imam Samudra, 38, and brothers Amrozi, 46, and Ali Ghufron, alias Mukhlas, 48, were executed simultaneously by firing squads shortly after midnight Saturday.

The executions took place on Nusakambangan Island off the southern coast of Java where the men were being held on death row, said spokesman for the attorney general's office Jasman Panjaitan.

The three were rounded up from their cells at 11 pm and taken to a location known as the 'Nirbaya' hills, some 6 kilometres from Nusakambangan's Batu Penitentiary, the state-run Antara news agency reported.

'At around 00:15 am (1715 GMT Saturday), the convicted Amrozi bin Haji Nurhasyim, Abdul Azis, alias Imam Samudra, and Ali Ghufron, alias Mukhlas, were executed by firing squads,' Panjaitan told reporters.

The three were confirmed dead by doctors who supervised the executions, and their bodies were brought to a nearby clinic for autopsy, he added.

The executions brought an end to years of uncertainty about the fate of the three men, who have been on death row since 2003, when a Bali court sentenced them to die for masterminding the bombing of two nightspots in the tourist district of Kuta.

None of the bombers showed any remorse for the attacks and warned that there would be retaliation by other Islamist militants if they were executed.

At the hometown of brothers Amrozi and Mukhlas in the East Java village of Tenggulun, hundreds of militant supporters shouted 'Allahu Akbar!' (God is Great) with many of them carrying banners praising the bombers as 'heroes,' witnesses said.

A big 'Welcome Martyrs' banner was unfurled on the road into the men's East Java village amid fears of a violent militant backlash across the majority Muslim nation.

Mohamad Chozin, a brother of Amrozi and Mukhlas, said their bodies will be taken to their mother's house before being brought to the family-run mosque for prayers before burial at public cemetery nearby. Security was extra-tight.

Authorities had said earlier that the family would only be allowed to bury the men once the bodies were flown to their home villages.

Samudra's wife, Zakiah Darajad, in an open letter read by a relative at a news conference in Serang, said: 'Hope Allah gives the best to them and gives the worst to everyone that inflicted this unfair treatment.'

At least one police officer was injured when militant funeral-goers scuffled with police officers after the bodies of brothers Amrozi and Mukhlas arrived at their residences for their funeral, media reports said. There were no reports of arrests.

A similar scene took place 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. Crowds of Muslim militants chanting 'Allahu Akbar!' clashed with police as authorities tried to prevent them from getting too close to the bodies, witnesses said.

Dozens of foreign tourists and the local residents joined in meditation at the 'Ground Zero' monument on Bali island. Widows of the bombing victims claimed the felt relief when they heard the television broadcast that the three bombers had finally been executed.

'We were happy not only because of revenge and hated, but because the government could uphold justice in this country,' Hayati Eka Laksmi, one of the widows, was quoted as saying by Kompas.com online news portal.

Indonesia has been on high alert, with extra police deployed at embassies, shopping malls and offices over the past week.

Indonesian authorities repeatedly postponed plans to execute the three while attorneys filed repeated legal appeals, including demands for a judicial review.

The three were members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a regional terrorist network responsible for several bombings across Indonesia.

These included simultaneous church bombings on Christmas Eve 2000, bombings on Bali in 2002 and 2005, the bombing of the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta in 2004 and an attack on the Australian embassy in 2005.

Imam Samudra was the planner who chose the targets and organised the two suicide bombers. Ali Ghufron, better know as Mukhlas, was the financier who met al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Amrozi, dubbed 'the smiling assassin,' was the mechanic who bought the explosives and the Mitsubishi van used as a car bomb.

Police have conducted a manhunt for Noordin Mohammad Top, a Malaysian bomb-maker and alleged JI leader, for allegedly being involved in the string of bombing attacks in Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population.

Indonesia has been spared further major terrorism attacks for the past three years.