07 August 2008

Security clampdown as Bali bombers await fate

JAKARTA - Security authorities have heightened security for vital facilities in Cilacap, Central Java, ahead of imminent executions of the three Bali bombers.

The Jakarta Post said a platoon of police's elite Mobile Brigade officers have been deployed to safeguard PertaminaÃ¢â¬â¢s oil refinery in Cilacap.

CilacapÃ¢â¬â¢s police chief admitted the round-the-clock security saying it was necessary to prevent any backlash from Muslim militants.

All administrative requirements for the executions of Amrozi, Imam Samudra and Mukhlas were completed Saturday, and a last ditch bid by the trio Ã¢â¬' responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people including 88 Australians - Ã¢â¬~¨Ã¢â¬~¨appears set to fail.

The bombers have requested a judicial review of the law regulating the implementation of the death penalty, on the grounds it is inhumane, and therefore unconstitutional, one of their lawyers said.

Meanwhile, a former top intelligence officer has been implicated in the murder of prominent human rights activist, Munir Thalib, who died of arsenic poisoning during a Garuda Indonesia flight from Singapore to the Netherlands in 2004.

A spokesman at IndonesiaÃ¢â¬â¢s attorney general's office said prosecutors had 20 days after accepting a police dossier to file a case against Muchdi Purwoprandjono, former deputy chief of Indonesia's intelligence agency.

Munir was an outspoken critic of Indonesia's military.

The Jakarta Post noted that IndonesiaÃ¢â¬â¢s Supreme Court has already sentenced Pollycarpus Priyanto, a former pilot for national carrier Garuda, to 20 years behind bars for his murder.

An Indonesian court also sentenced Indra Setiawan, a former head of national carrier Garuda, to one year in jail for his role in the same case.

Setiawan had previously told the court that before Munir's death he had received a letter from the national intelligence agency asking him to allow Priyanto to be an aviation security officer.

Setiawan said he lost the letter that, he alleged, was signed by Purwoprandjono.