‘No reason’ to object to sentence, say Islamic leaders

INDONESIAN Islamic leaders said yesterday they had no reason to object to a death sentence given to Amrozi, the first man found guilty of involvement in the Bali bombing.

“If the process has been fair and objective, we have to accept it,” said Ahmad Syafii Maarif, chairman of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic social organisation.

Din Syamsuddin, secretary general of the Indonesian Ulamas’ Council (MUI), had a similar reaction, saying: “There is no reason for us to object” to the sentence, as long as the court was a just one.

MUI is the country’s highest authority on Islamic matters. “From the Islamic legal perspective anybody who kills another person without reason deserves to be sanctioned with the death penalty, if the court is based on justice,” Syamsuddin said.

Prosecutors alleged Amrozi attended a meeting in August 2002 in which another accused, Imam Samudra, told of his plan for “war against the US”.

Amrozi’s attorney, Wirawan Adnan, said they will appeal the sentence “not because we believe he is innocent, but because he was mistreated and was not been given a fair trial. We do not believe that he deserves the death penalty, he was not the mastermind.”

Police say the Jemaah Islamiyah militant network headed by Abu Bakar Bashir was behind the Bali bombings that killed 202 people last October.

Bashir was not charged with the Bali bombings but is currently on trial for attempting to topple the government through terrorism to establish an Islamic state.