Indonesia early yesterday executed three Muslim militants convicted for their roles in the 2002 bombings in Bali that killed 202 people, mostly foreign visitors, officials and media reports said.
Imam Samudra, 38, and brothers Amrozi, 46, and Ali Ghufron, alias Mukhlas, 48, were executed simultaneously by firing squads shortly after midnight Saturday.
The executions took place on Nusakambangan Island off the southern coast of Java where the men were being held on death row, said spokesman for the attorney general’s office Jasman Panjaitan.
The three were rounded up from their cells at 11pm and taken to a location known as the “Nirbaya” hills, some 6km from Nusakambangan’s Batu Penitentiary, the state-run Antara news agency reported.
“At around 00:15am, the convicted Amrozi bin Haji Nurhasyim, Abdul Azis, alias Imam Samudra, and Ali Ghufron, alias Mukhlas, were executed by firing squads,” Panjaitan told reporters.
The three were confirmed dead by doctors who supervised the executions, and their bodies were brought to a nearby clinic for autopsy, he added.
The executions brought an end to years of uncertainty about the fate of the three men, who have been on death row since 2003, when a Bali court sentenced them to die for masterminding the bombing of two nightspots in the tourist district of Kuta.
None of the bombers showed any remorse for the attacks and warned that there would be retaliation by other Islamist militants if they were executed.
At the hometown of brothers Amrozi and Mukhlas in the East Java village of Tenggulun, hundreds of militant supporters shouted “Allahu Akbar [God is Great]” with many of them carrying banners praising the bombers as “heroes,” witnesses said.
At least one police officer was injured when militant funeral-goers scuffled with police officers after the bodies of brothers Amrozi and Mukhlas arrived at their residences for their funeral, media reports said. There were no reports of arrests.
A similar scene took place in the West Java town of Serang as Samudra’s body was paraded to the graveyard, shrouded in a black cloth bearing a Koranic inscription in Arabic.
Crowds of Muslim militants chanting “Allahu Akbar” clashed with police as authorities tried to prevent them from getting too close to the bodies, witnesses said.
Dozens of foreign tourists and local residents joined in meditation at the “Ground Zero” monument on Bali.
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