Court weighs venue for bombers' last ditch moves

Dicky Christanto , The Jakarta Post , Denpasar | Wed, 02/27/2008 12:08 PM | Bali

The Denpasar district court's three panels of judges will decide on Thursday whether the court will accept the motion submitted by the Bali bombers' lawyers asking for the trial proceedings to be moved to Cilacap District Court in Central Java.

The lawyers presented the motion on Monday during the first day of the case review. They said the relocation would make the legal process more efficient since their clients were all incarcerated on the maximum-security prison island of Nusa Kambangan, which is offshore of Cilacap.

Fahmi Bachmid from the Muslim Lawyer's Team (TPM) said the lawyers wanted to present several witnesses and evidence now in Cilicap.

"It will be very expensive if we have to transport these witnesses and evidence to Denpasar," he said.

The TPM is representing Imam Samudra, Amrozi, and Ali Ghufron, who were found guilty of orchestrating the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202, most of whom were foreign tourists.

This is the bombers' second case review. In the first, in 2006, the Supreme Court rejected their arguments and upheld their death sentences.

The bombers' lawyers said that the relocation of trial proceedings was not unheard of.

"It is a common practice. Hutomo Mandala Putra and Abu Bakar Ba'asyir were all tried in Cilacap and not in the courts where they had been originally tried and sentenced," Fahmi said.

However, the prosecutors criticized the request and questioned the need to conduct a case review trial.

They said the convicts already had undergone a case review back in 2006 and that the Supreme Court's willingness to grant another one would set a bad legal precedent.

"It would set a bad precedent for society and also would generate a wrong image; the image that our system of law is weak," chief prosecutor Olopan Nainggolan told the judges during a trial for Imam Samudra.

Besides, he added, the trial was not worthy of being examined as the lawyers have not provided any new evidence.

According to Indonesia' law, a case review trial can be requested if one of the involved parties has in its possession new evidence that would have a significant influence on the result of the trial.

The prosecutors were also determined that the trial should be conducted in Denpasar.

"The criminal law clearly states that an appeal court for a convict should be conducted in the court that tried him or her at the first stage," Olopan said.

The panel of judges in Imam Samudra's case review trial comprises Ida Bagus Putu Madeg, Firman Tambunan and Wayan Mertha.

Amrozi's panel of judges comprises Nyoman Sutama, Sigit Sutanto, and Martin Bidara while Ali Ghufron's comprises Daniel Palitin, Hotma Nainggolan and M Sabir.

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