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.
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