Indonesia Says Bali Bombers to be Executed Next Month | Voice of America - English
Indonesian officials announced they will soon execute the three Islamic militants convicted for the 2002 terrorist bombings on the tourist island of Bali that killed 202 people.
The spokesman for the attorney general'soffice, Jasman Panjaitan, told reporters Friday all legal matterspertaining to the executions have now been completed. He says the execution will take place in early November, but did not give an exact date. Jasmansaid the three men will be executed at Nusakambangan island, themaximum security prison island just off central Java where the threemen are being held. Most executions in Indonesia are not announced and are carried out late at night by a firing squad. ImamSamudra, Amrozi Nurhasyim, and Ali Ghufron were sentenced to death fiveyears ago for planning and carrying out the 2002 suicide bombings ontwo night clubs in Bali that left 202 people dead, many of them foreigntourists. The three men belong to the Southeast Asian terroristgroup Jemaah Islamiyah, which is also blamed for the 2003 Marriot Hotelbombing in Jakarta, the 2004 bombing outside the Australian embassy inJakarta, and a second terrorist attack in Bali in 2005. Theauthorities have arrested more than 300 Islamic militants linked toJemaah Islamiyah over the past few years and most experts agree thegroup has been decimated and is no longer capable of carrying out largescale attacks. But security expert and author on the terroristgroup, Ken Conboy, says there are still small networks of Islamicradicals who could carry out revenge attacks, as vowed by the Balibombers, after the executions take place. "There's a wholenetwork of hard-line radicals that have easy access to explosives?andlet's face it - vest bombs and pipe bombs are not very sophisticatedand certainly within their ability, so the technology's there and thenew materials are out there, so it's not that tough to do," he said. Earlierthis week police say they foiled a plot by militants to bomb a fueldepot in Jakarta and arrested five suspects, but they did not elaboratefurther or say whether the plan was related to the Bali bombers'impending execution.