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Execution delays could turn terrorists into martyrs
The planned executions of the three Bali bombers on death row have been politicized to gain Muslim support ahead of next year's elections, observers said Monday
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The planned executions of the three Bali bombers on death row have been politicized to gain Muslim support ahead of next year's elections, observers said Monday.
They said the political tug of war that had seen the executions continually delayed would increase the chances of the three convicted terrorists -- Amrozi, Imam Samudra and Ali Ghufron -- attaining martyr status.
The more the sentence is delayed, the harder it will be for the government to uphold the law as sympathy for the bombers will grow, observers said a day after the sixth anniversary of the bombings that killed 202 people in Bali.
Some of the survivors of the blast questioned the government's reluctance to execute the three convicts.
Political expert at the University of Indonesia Bantarto Bandoro said he suspected that some hard-line legislators at the House of Representatives had managed to lobby for more time for the convicts in the hope that the delay would lead to public sympathy to overturn the sentences.
"I think it's late already as the executions should have been performed long before Ramadan. The government seems to (be attempting to) appease the Muslim community to gain popularity ahead of the elections," he said.
Bantarto said the delays would weaken the fight against terrorism and undermine the potential for the death penalty to deter crime.
"With all eyes on Indonesia, we will be seen as lenient and compromising by the international community if the executions are postponed," he said.
Legislator Andreas Pareira of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) accused the government of hiding behind a wall of legal nonsense to gain political support.
"All legal means have been exhausted so the executions should be performed quickly. It will be chaotic if political and legal issues are mixed," he said.
Andreas said the delays could cultivate an air of injustice because the government had been quick to execute in 2006 Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marinus Riwu, who were convicted of mass killings during the sectarian conflict between Christians and Muslims in Poso, Central Sulawesi, in 2000.
The Supreme Court rejected in September last year a case review demand filed by Amrozi, Samudra and Ghufron, which was the last legal resort available to the three terrorists.
However, the Attorney General's Office (AGO) has continually prolonged the lives of the bombers, most recently by delaying the executions beyond the holy month of Ramadan, which ended Sep. 30.
The AGO on Monday denied accusations it had delayed the executions for political reasons, promising in a public announcement that the three would be killed Friday.
"The allegations are untrue. We have no intention of delaying the executions. We need to consider many things before we can carry them out," AGO spokesman Jasman Simanjuntak said.
Lars Bergander, a Swede whose teenage daughter was killed in the 2002 Bali bombing, said he eagerly awaited the executions.
"I'm glad that your government managed to arrest the terrorists. But I don't understand why they have repeatedly postponed the executions," he was quoted as saying by AFP.
