Executions: Backlash feared
2008-11-08 22:47
Cilacap, Indonesia - Three Islamists sentenced to death for the Bali bombings which killed 202 people were executed by firing squad early on Sunday morning, after five years of legal challenges.
"At around 00:15 the three convicted men on death row, Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra, were executed by firing squad," said attorney general's office spokesperson Jasman Panjaitan.
"The autopsy results show that all three are dead. The family members are now bathing the bodies," he said, adding that more details would be given later on Sunday.
Amrozi, 47, his brother Mukhlas, 48, and ringleader Imam Samudra, 38, were killed with shots to the heart in an orange grove near their prison on Nusakambangan island off southern Java, TV One television reported.
A source in the prison told AFP they shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greater) as they were escorted out of their isolation cells by paramilitary police.
A brother of Mukhlas and Amrozi - the latter dubbed the "smiling assassin" for his courtroom antics - said the family had been informed.
"May our brothers, God willing, be invited by green birds to heaven now," Mohammad Chozin told reporters in the family's village of Tenggulun, east Java.
"We're now handling the preparations to bring the bodies back, which may take two hours," he said outside an Islamic boarding school, as supporters shouted "Allahu Akbar".
'Radicals' gather
Some 200 Islamic radicals had gathered at the school, some carrying banners praising the bombers as "heroes", amid fears of a violent militant backlash across the mainly Muslim country.
The 2002 attack targeted packed nightspots on the holiday island of Bali, killing more than 160 foreigners including 88 Australians, as well as 38 Indonesians.
It was blamed on the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network, a group once linked to Al-Qaeda which has launched a series of bloody attacks in Southeast Asia over the past decade.
Security has been beefed up around sensitive areas like embassies, tourist spots, shopping malls and ports. On Hindu-majority Bali, 3 500 police are on the streets providing additional security, officials have said.
Australia has urged citizens to reconsider travel to Indonesia and the United States - which lost seven nationals in the attack - has warned Americans to "maintain a low profile" and avoid demonstrations.
The bombers were sentenced to death in 2003 under a new anti-terror law which was applied retroactively, leading to criticism from rights campaigners and fuelling anger among their Islamist supporters.
They repeatedly said they wanted to die as "martyrs" for their dream of creating an Islamic utopia spanning much of Southeast Asia.
But the executions were delayed by a series of failed appeals and legal challenges, and most recently by the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in September.
The bodies are expected to be taken by helicopter to the bombers' families in east and west Java, an extraordinary precaution designed to limit any demonstrations.
- SAPA