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AGO sets deadline for Bali bombers case review
The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Wed, 11/08/2006 11:46 AM
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Attorney General's Office is giving the lawyers of the three 2002 Bali bombing convicts until the end of the month to file for a Supreme Court case review or it will set an execution date.
Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh said Tuesday that the lawyers for Amrozi, Imam Samudera and Ali Gufron, had been too slow in their handling of the case review.
""The date will be set if there is no further legal intervention from their lawyers along the way,"" said Abdul Rahman, who believes the three bombers should be executed soon to avoid further delays.
The three men were sentenced to death for the Oct. 12, 2002, Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, most of whom were foreign tourists.
The Denpasar District Court handed down the verdict on Aug. 22 this year. The executions have been delayed, however, because the defendants' lawyers objected to the method of execution and said they would file a case review.
""We will file a judicial review soon with the Constitutional Court on the 1964 Death Penalty Law because an execution by firing squad in Nusa Kambangan Prison could inflict suffering on (the convict),"" said lawyer Mahendradatta.
Mahendradatta told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that Amrozi's legal team had accepted the death sentence but believed that the means contradicted the 1945 Constitution, which stipulates that citizens are not to be put through undue suffering.
""In the history of this country, Indonesia has never used an execution method that inflicts minimum pain. This has to change,"" he added.
He said it would take two minutes for the men to die after they had been shot.
""Now we need to have confirmation from the AGO over what kind of execution the trio will receive,"" said Mahendradatta, who is also the coordinator for a group of Muslim lawyers.
""We will request a case review from the Supreme Court because it had based its verdict using a retrospective law. Even the Attorney General cannot interrupt this. However, we still need a copy of the written verdict from the Denpasar District Court,"" he said.
Mahendradatta said that the three men had been tried retroactively under an anti-terror law passed six days after the bombings.
Amrozi, Samudra and Gufron have been awaiting their executions at Batu Nusakambangan Prison in Cilacap, Central Java, since Oct. 2005, when they were transferred there from Kerobokan Prison in Denpasar, Bali.
They bombed two nightclubs in Kuta, Bali, and were specifically targeting western tourists.
The 2002 attack, followed by another bombing in January 2005, crippled the tourism sector of Bali. (03)
