BALI, Indonesia, 8 August 2003 — Delivering its first verdict for last year’s Bali bombings, an Indonesian court yesterday convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad the “smiling bomber” Amrozi bin Nurhasyim for his role in the Oct. 12 attack that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.
Amrozi, the first of three dozen suspects to go to trial, burst into a grin when a five-judge panel found him guilty of planning and helping execute the bombings — the deadliest since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. His lawyers said they would appeal the death sentence.
“The accused is found guilty in a legal and convincing manner of carrying out an act of terrorism,” said Judge I Made Karna.
After the verdict was read, Amrozi took off his skull cap, raised his arms and gave his lawyers the thumbs-up sign. Hundreds of people, including survivors of the bombings, cheered when the judge read the sentence.
When Amrozi entered the court in the morning, he punched his fist in the air and shouted, “Burn, burn the Jews”. During his trial that began in early May, Amrozi had told the court that “whites” deserved to die and said he welcomed the death sentence.
A 41-year-old mechanic from the island of Java, Amrozi has been called the “smiling bomber” because of his jocular manner and lack of remorse after his arrest last year. As he was led out of the courtroom, Amrozi smiled broadly at Australian survivors, some of whom shouted back angrily.
Hundreds of revelers, most of them foreign tourists, were packed into nightclubs in Bali’s Kuta beach district on a busy Saturday night when two blasts, the largest a massive car bomb, ripped through the area. Nearly half the dead were Australians enjoying holidays on an island famed for its festivals and golden beaches. Several dozen Indonesians, including Balinese, also died.
The verdict came two days after another blast exploded at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, killing at least 10 people and wounding nearly 150. Both attacks — by car bombs detonated by mobile phones — have been linked with Jemaah Islamiah, a shadowy Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group believed to be operating in Southeast Asia.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard welcomed the verdict and said it would offer some comfort to the bereaved. “I’m sure I speak for all Australians in welcoming the guilty verdict,” Howard told a press conference in Canberra. “Most of all I hope that this verdict provides some sense of comfort to those who lost their loved ones in this tragedy and that they feel in some way that justice has been done,” he said.
He said the Australian government — which normally opposes capital punishment — would not make “any representations to the government of Indonesia that that penalty not be carried out.”
Amrozi’s was the first of at least three dozen cases to come to trial. Three other defendants are currently facing the court in Denpasar. At least 30 other suspects, apprehended after a massive manhunt, are expected to face justice in coming months.
