'Get ready for executions'

2008-11-07 08:04

Tenggulun - The families of the Indonesian Islamists on death row for the 2002 Bali bombings have been told to "get ready" for the executions, a prosecutor said on Friday.

Prosecutors and police visited the family of brothers Amrozi, 47, and Mukhlas, 48, in this east Java village and warned them to prepare for bad news.

"We were just here to tell the family to get ready for when the executions take place," chief district prosecutor Irnensis said after speaking to the family for about 30 minutes.

He made no further comment and did not specify when the three bombers -Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra, 38 - would be executed by firing squad.

Indonesian officials have said only that the executions will take place in "early November".

The bombers were sentenced in 2003 for the attack that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists including 88 Australians.

Family member Ali Fauzi said the family was ready.

"The prosecutor told us to get ready and prepare ourselves in case the execution takes place," he told AFP.

"And they told us not to wait for a letter informing us of the executions because the Bali court has no obligation to send one. We told the prosecutor we're ready, there's no problem."

Samudra's family in the west Java town of Serang received a similar visit from prosecutors late on Thursday, local media reported.

Indonesia usually executes convicts by firing squad in undisclosed locations in the middle of the night. The prisoners are told at least three days in advance but there is no obligation to the families.

Helicopters have been prepared to take the convicts' bodies from the high-security prison on Nusakambangan island off southern Java to their villages.

Authorities are afraid that an overland journey would turn into a massive funeral procession for jihadist radicals bent on "holy war" with the West.

- SAPA