JAKARTA -Imam Samudra, one of three people on death row for their key roles in the 2002 Bali bombings, will be executed as soon as possible after his family refused to seek presidential clemency, an Indonesian judicial official said on Tuesday. “The results of checks by teams from the prosecutor office and the Denpasar state district court are that the family of Imam Samudra will not seek presidential clemency,” said Masyudi Ridwan, spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office.Under Indonesian law the family of a convict sentenced to death has the right to seek clemency from the president should the convict himself refuse to do so.
Samudra, 35, has said he will not seek a pardon or a case review.
The October 2002 attacks on Bali nightspots by the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror network killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, in the worst terrorist attack since September 11, 2001, in the United States. Samudxra had attended planning meetings, selected the targets and assigned tasks to the bombers as part of what he saw as a holy war against the United States and its allies.
The families of brothers Amrozi and Ali Ghufron, alias Mukhlas, are also being asked if they wish to seek mercy. “If the families of all three people are not seeking clemency, it means that all legal recourses have been taken and the prosecutor’s office will as soon as possible hold the executions,” Ridwan said.
He said that even though Samudra has no other avenue to avoid execution, his office would wait for the replies from the families of the two other before planning the executions. These are carried out by police firing squads.
| Might as well do all three together |
Two other Bali bombers are serving live sentences while around 25 are serving shorter jail terms.
Samudra said from his death row cell last August that he did not need mercy. “I believe I will die on the right path,” he said. “I don’t need mercy in this world because God has forgiven me.”
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