Amrozi bin Nurhasyim stretched his arms out to his sides, clenched his fists, raised his thumbs and grinned broadly at the five judges in front of him.
He then turned in his rickety swivel chair to face the hundreds of cheering, applauding and weeping people in the public gallery and gave them the same victory salute.
”Allahu Akbar [God is most great],” he yelled in exultation.
It was as if the radical Islamist, a poorly educated village car mechanic from east Java, had just been acquitted of taking part in the bombing of two Bali nightclubs last October which killed 202 people, rather than becoming the first person to be convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad.
As the 41-year-old ”smiling bomber” was swiftly escorted out of the heavily guarded Balinese courtroom with his trademark grin fixed firmly in place and shouts of ”Die Amrozi!” ringing in his ears, survivors and victims’ relatives said they were not surprised by such defiance.
”He’s been doing it since the very start so I wouldn’t expect anything different,” said Natalie Juniardi, from Australia, who lost her Balinese husband John and two of her staff when Paddy’s Bar and the Sari Club in Kuta were blown up in coordinated explosions on October 12. ”We try not to let it bother us.”
Others dismissed it as false bravado and ”shock treatment”.
”He was just squirming in his box,” said David Ure, from Ballarat, Australia, who was in the Sari Club with his girlfriend — now his fiancee — when the bomb went off.
”It’s an eye for an eye, but it is justice because if you let him go he could do it again.”
Relatives of the 26 Britons who died in the blast, many of whom were in court, said they feared the death penalty he seemed pleased to have received would only make him a martyr. ”This adds further fuel to fundamentalism,” said Susanna Miller, whose brother Dan died in the blast.
”Gandhi said an eye for an eye makes the world blind,” Miller told Reuters. ”We want a cessation of violence.
”We’re furious with the people that did it, but clearly it is just going to make the international situation worse if we’re going to have 30 martyrs.”
She said British families intended to appeal through the Foreign Office for the sentence to be commuted.
Amrozi was convicted yesterday of buying and adapting the vehicle used in the main explosion. He was also found guilty of buying most of the chemicals used to make the bombs, transporting them to Bali and helping with other preparations for the worst terrorist attack since the September 11 strikes on America.
Thirty-three other suspects have been arrested. Trials of three of the alleged key plotters, including Amrozi’s brothers Ali Ghufron and Ali Imron, have already begun.
In their detailed seven-hour summing up, the judges branded Amrozi’s actions as ”extraordinary” and ”crimes against humanity”. They rejected his defence that he was a mere foot soldier and his actions were justified under Islam.
Slaughter
”Islam never teaches violence, murder or any other crime,” the judges said. ”You never have the right to slaughter other people.”
They concluded the attack had been coordinated by Jemaah Islamiyah, the south-east Asian Islamist terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda, although Amrozi has always denied being a member of the organisation.
When it came to listing the mitigating circumstances, the judges said simply: ”There aren’t any.”
Amrozi has repeatedly said he was seeking to strike at America and its allies, especially Israel, and hoped ”whites” would die.
In an impromptu press conference last week during a consultation with his lawyers, the defendant said he was relishing death and the prospect of becoming a martyr.
”If they kill me, one million more Amrozis will emerge to continue the jihad,” he said, before breaking into a self-composed ditty that roundly condemned the ”infidel Jews”.
Even Amrozi’s defence lawyers, who had heartily joined in the Allahu Akbar chorus when Amrozi arrived in court dressed in a white Islamic shirt, calf-length trousers, flip-flops and a green and white skull cap, accepted his guilt.
But they said they planned to appeal because they believed a miscarriage of justice occurred in the specially converted hall, previously used for functions hosted by the women civil servants association.
”He is guilty, but he is not guilty as a planner,” said the leading defence counsel Adnan Wirawan. ”He does not have sufficient intelligence to become a mastermind. A mastermind requires a sophisticated intelligence, which he does not have. And we believe the death sentence is revenge and not justice.”
Vengeance
They seemed to have a point because there was a strong atmosphere of vengeance outside the court afterwards.
”Anyone who’s intentionally out to kill somebody, I think they deserve the death penalty,” said Juniardi, whose three-month-old son will never know his father.
”A lot of the Balinese would like a slow death but when he is killed it will be a great relief. I’m just waiting for that day.”
Bradley Phillips, who was in the Sari Club with friends from Perth, Australia, was equally keen to see Amrozi die, which could be months, if not years, away if all appeal opportunities are pursued.
”I wouldn’t mind being the one pulling the trigger,” he said. ”It should probably be dipped in pig’s blood first as he showed no remorse.”
Eighty-eight Australians died in the bombings. There were also 36 Indonesians among the dead.
The Australian prime minister, John Howard, welcomed the verdict and sentence even though he usually disapproves of the death penalty.
”I’m sure I speak for all Australians in welcoming the guilty verdict,” he said. ”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.”
The British chargé d’affaires in Indonesia, Paul Spellar, who was in court, was equally fulsome about Indonesia’s usually ineffectual and corrupt legal system.
”We are pleased that the due process has been applied and pleased that the court has reached its verdict,” he said. ”I hope this is comforting to relatives and survivors.” – Guardian Unlimited Â