[Kabar-indonesia] AGO sets deadline for Bali bombers case review

[Joyo at aol.com]

The Jakarta Post
November 8, 2006

AGO sets deadline for Bali bombers case review

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.

------------------------------------------
Joyo Indonesia News Service
------------------------------------------