Seems like they were being executed because there was a massacre.
(AKI) -- The brother of one of the Bali bombers sentenced to death for Indonesia's worst terrorist attack has threatened a "massacre" if the executions are carried out. Jaafar Shodiq, brother of Amrozi, one of the three convicted bombers, issued the ultimatum, according to the press agency Detikcom. "If the execution is carried out there will be a massacre," said Jaafar Shodiq, according to the site. He gave the government the warning to stop the execution "if it wants to maintain security".
Once a government allows its actions to be constrained by bomb-waving pinheads it has no security to maintain.
The warning was revealed as Islamic extremists rallied in the Indonesian capital to protest against the imminent execution of the three bombers found guilty of the twin bomb attacks carried out in October 2002 on the island of Bali. A total of 202 people died in the attacks, most of them foreigners.
Around 100 chanting militants descended on the offices of the national human rights body as the bombers' lawyers met officials inside to demand access for the families. The militants condemned the executions, and praised bombers Amrozi, his brother Mukhlas and Imam Samudra, calling them holy warriors.
International rights group, Human Rights Watch, recently asked the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to commute the death sentence of the bombers who face imminent execution and instead sentence them to life in prison.
The Bali bomb attacks were the worst terrorist act in Indonesian history. The twin attacks which occurred on 12 October 2002 in the tourist district of Kuta on the island of Bali killed 202 people and injured more than 200 others. The three men were tried and sentenced under terrorism laws introduced after the bombings.
"The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Indonesia is party, prohibits in article 15 the retroactive application of penal legislation....the basis for the death sentence in these cases--should not have been applied to Amrozi, Ghufron, and Imam Samudra," said the letter.
With Imam Samudra and Ali Ghufron, Amrozi is a member of Jemaah Islamiyah, an Islamist terrorist group with suspected links to Al-Qaeda, that is committed to uniting south-east Asia under a Muslim caliphate.
Abu Rusdan, leader of JI from 2002 to 2004, said the group had no interest in the executions. "The execution is the responsibility of JI but the entire Islamic community," Abu Rusdan said. Abu Rusdan was found guilty of hiding one of the men who carried out the Bali bombings and sentenced to three and a half years in jail. "There is no room for violence in Islam. Islam wants prosperity for everyone," he said. "Violent acts are not justified in Islam." 
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