Bali bombers lodge another appeal
Updated
The three Bali bombers on death row in Indonesia are set to lodge yet another appeal against their convictions and imminent executions.
Presenter: Geoff Thompson
Speaker: Mahendradatta, Lawyer
GEOFF THOMPSON: So confusing is the current legal status of Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, Ali Ghufron, or Mukhlas, and Imam Samudra, that the top judge at Denpasar's District Court is going to travel to Jakarta to meet with the head of Indonesia's Supreme Court, to work out just what is going on.
As Government pressure mounts to hurry up the firing squad executions of the three Bali bombers, they have prepared yet another, so-called, final appeal called a judicial review, in which Amrozi intends to represent himself, says his lawyer Mahendradatta.
MAHENDRADATTA: Amrozi today has filed the judiciary review by himself. So according to the law of the Republic of Indonesia esspecially criminal (inaudible), yeah?
GEOFF THOMPSON: Yeah.
MAHENDRADATTA: The court must call him personally to appear before the court.
GEOFF THOMPSON: The last two judicial reviews have been derailed by judges' refusals to move the hearings or let the bombers appear in court, so it's unclear just what will happen this time.
Prison privileges for the bombers however, have never been in doubt, with them hosting relatively regular get-togethers in jail for their friends and families. And that's set to happen again in just 10 days' time when Amrozi marries for the fourth time in a prison ceremony. This time, remarrying the woman he divorced 20 years ago.
Lawyer Mahendradatta again.
MAHENDRADATTA: This is not like a, you know, something like a party or ceremonial there. It's just only to get a permission to bring the bride inside of the prison, means that doing religion procedure in marriage, just only that… so it is not like what we think for the free men.
GEOFF THOMPSON: Amrozi has another current wife who was married to him by the dead Jemaah Islamiyah founder Abdullah Sungkar. Abu Bakar Bashir also attended that ceremony in 1994.
Mahendradatta says this latest wedding will not be a party in the prison, but he confirms the invites have already gone out, and Abu Bakar Bashir is on the guest list.
MAHENDRADATTA: I cannot guarantee that Abu Bakar Bashir will come or not, yeah? But actually, Amrozi is proud to invite him and we already deliver the invitation to him. But again, Amrozi is not a freed man. He is under the maximum security. So because of that he is not free to invite from outside.
GEOFF THOMPSON: Of course, it wouldn't be the first time the former Jemaah Islamiyah leader has gone to that high security jail to voice his moral support for the three self-confessed and unrepentant killers who took the lives of 202 people, including 88 Australians in 2002.
