Author:
Publication: Reuters
Date: November 9, 2008
Hundreds of hardline Muslims gathered under
tight security for the funerals of three Indonesian militants executed on
Sunday for the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people.
The three men from the group Jemaah Islamiah
- Imam Samudra, 38, Mukhlas, 48, and Amrozi, 46 - were executed by firing
squad on Nusakambangan island in central Java shortly after midnight, a spokesman
for the attorney-general's office said.
The two explosions on Bali's Kuta strip on
October 12, 2002 - one at Paddy's Bar and the other at the Sari Club - killed
202 people including 88 Australians and 38 Indonesian citizens.
"They had to pay the ultimate price for
what they did," Peter Hughes, who suffered severe burns in the attacks,
told Australia's Channel Nine television. "These guys set about mass
murder."
Georgia Lysaght, another Australian who lost
her 33-year-old brother Scott in the attacks, told Reuters the executions
would make little difference to how she felt.
"It isn't going to bring Scott back and
it isn't going to change what happened," she said.
In an interview late last year, the militants
said their only regret was that some Muslims were killed.
Officials had previously said that after the
executions, the bombers' bodies would be taken for burial by helicopter to
their respective home towns - brothers Mukhlas and Amrozi to Tenggulun in
Lamongan in east Java, and Imam Samudra to Serang.
Security has been tight in Indonesia and some
analysts say they feared a hardline backlash if the executions went ahead.
In Tenggulun, hundreds of militant Islamists
from groups such as the Islamic Defenders' Front, some wearing white skull
caps, had gathered, shadowed by large numbers of police and reporters.
Some were followers of controversial cleric
Abu Bakar Bashir, who is accused of co-founding regional militant group Jemaah
Islamiah and was jailed for conspiracy over the Bali bombings, but later cleared
of wrongdoing.
A banner at the cemetery where the two men
were due to be buried said: "Allah is greatest, welcome martyrs God willing."
Bashir was due to say prayers at the funeral.
Jemaah Islamiah said the Bali attacks were intended to deter foreigners as
part of a drive to make Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country,
part of a larger Islamic caliphate.
Although there have been no major bomb attacks
since 2005, Indonesia is considered at risk.
Australia immediately issued a new travel
warning for its citizens going to Indonesia and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith
warned on Australian television of possible reprisals.
"It is not a day that fills us with any
joy or any celebration," Smith said, adding: "We continue to have
credible information that terrorists may be planning attacks in Indonesia."
