Indonesia prepares for execution of Bali bombers

Amrozi

JAKARTA - Indonesia is preparing for the execution of three militants sentenced to death for the 2002 Bali bombings, but the exact date cannot be disclosed, the attorney-general's office said on Wednesday.

The three men - Iman Samudra, Amrozi and Ali Gufron - have been on death row for more than two years after courts convicted them of playing leading roles in the October 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali that killed 202 people, most of them tourists.

"We are preparing for the execution, but the place and timeframe are secret according to the law," said Wayan Pasek Suartha, the attorney-general's spokesman.

"We have got the permit, we asked to change the place of execution from Bali to Nusakambangan, because they have been detained there." Execution is normally carried out by a firing squad, but the exact location and time are kept secret. Normally, under Indonesian law, death row convicts are executed in the place where they have been tried.

But the attorney-general's office sought permission to shift the execution from the resort of Bali to the prison island of Nusakambangan in central Java where the militants were shipped last year after anger grew in the wake of suicide blasts on Oct. 1 that killed 20 people.

"The attorney-general sent a letter to me seeking permission to change the place of execution," Hamid Awaluddin, justice and human rights minister, told reporters in Bali.

"I have replied that it can be done because the execution is the attorney-general's prerogative. It depends on the attorney-general, when they are going to be executed." Some political analysts have said in the past their execution could make them martyrs in the eyes of Indonesia's militant fringe.

Last year, hundreds of protesters stormed a jail where many of those convicted over the 2002 attacks are serving time.

Amrozi, dubbed the "smiling bomber" for his chilling grin and expressions of delight at the Bali carnage, had said during his trial he welcomed the death penalty.

The bombings in Bali have been blamed on the Southeast Asian Islamic militant group, Jemaah Islamiah, which authorities say has links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

- REUTERS