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Security alert in Indonesia

— Photo: AFP

Tense times: Supporters stand next to the pictures of the executed Bali bombers (Imam Samudra, Amrozi and Mukhlas) before the funeral for Amrozi and Mukhlas in Tenggulun on Sunday.

SINGAPORE: All three death-row ‘Bali bombers’ were executed on Sunday for their role in the terrorist attacks on the Indonesian resort-island of Bali in October 2002. The attacks killed 202 — over 160 of them foreigners, especially Australians and a few Americans.

The news of the executions, carried out by a firing squad at a prison complex in central Java at 00.15 a.m. on Sunday, set off a wave of emotions about justice and remembrance, particularly in Australia, which is opposed to death penalty. Australia’s Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said there was now “credible information” about plans for terrorist attacks in Indonesia in the aftermath of the executions. Bali, he emphasised, remained a destination for those plotting reprisals in the latest context.

A security alert, sounded across the sprawling archipelago-state before the executions, was intensified thereafter over concerns about a possible backlash from Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), to which the convicts belonged. Clashes broke out between mourners and security forces, shortly after the bodies of the bombers were taken to their villages for burial. However, no major “revenge attacks” took place until nightfall, according to independent observers.

The three men — Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, his elder brother Ali Ghufron alias Mukhlas, and Imam Samudra — were executed after several weeks of suspense whether and if so when the 2003 judgment would be carried out. Amnesty International called upon Indonesia to give up capital punishment. Noting that “the Bali bombers perpetrated a horrific atrocity,” the organisation said “there is no clear evidence that the death penalty is an effective deterrent.”

The JI, whose existence as the Southeast Asian affiliate of Al-Qaeda was first detected by Singapore, was blamed for the bombings at two nightclubs in Bali on October 12, 2002. With the alleged mastermind, Noordin Mohammad Top of Malaysia, still at large, Indonesia prosecuted these bombers under an anti-terror legislation that was passed after the carnage. Amrozi, among them, earned notoriety as “the smiling assassin” for his courtroom “antics.” With all three confessing to their crimes and showing “no remorse,” the death penalty was imposed. Appeals followed and failed; but the convicts did not ask for presidential pardon, the last avenue that was open to them.

A “will” of Imam Samudra doing the rounds is said to exhort JI activists to carry forward its struggle for a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia. But there is no independent confirmation of the will. JI’s ideological leader Abu Bakar Bashir was not directly implicated in this case.

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