Update on Executions for Bali Bombers

There seems to have been progress in the Attorney General's Office with regards to the pending execution of the Bali bombers. The office is now preparing to execute three convicted Bali bombers and 16 drug traffickers sentenced to death for their offences.

An AGO spokesman I Wayan Pasek Suarte did not reveal when the bombers Imam Samudra, Amrozi and his elder brother Ali Ghufron alias Mukhlas would face firing squads. The law forbids authorities from publicly releasing dates for executions until after the events although the convicts and their families are informed in advance.

But, the AGO had received preliminary approval from Justice and Human Rights Minister Hamid Awaluddin to carry out the executions of the bombers at Nusakambangan Island, a heavily guarded prison in waters off Cilacap in Central Java where they are on death row.

Normally death row convicts are executed in jails in the jurisdiction where their crimes were committed. However the bombers would be executed outside of Bali for safety reasons. It seems only fair that they be executed in Bali considering it was there where the atrocious and cowardly acts occurred. Somehow I think the authorities are worried the Balinese people themselves will get hold of the bombers before they are executed. Now there is a good idea - hand them over to the Balinese!.

The Denpasar District Court sentenced the three militants to death in September 2003 for the 2002 bombings that killed 202 people, most of them tourists from overseas. Prosecutors would also execute 16 of 43 men and women the state had sentenced to death for drug trafficking.