First Bali Terrorist Bomber Convicted and Sentenced.

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Last Update: Saturday, August 9, 2003. 8:13am (AEST)

Amrozi smiles after being convicted for his role in the Bali bombings. (AFP)

Amrozi signs on to appeal

Lawyers for convicted Bali bomber Amrozi are expected to file an appeal against their client's death sentence on Monday.

Amrozi has signed a document allowing the appeal, despite earlier saying he was willing to face a firing squad.

Amrozi grinned and gave the thumbs up to a packed courtroom on Thursday, when a panel of judges sentenced him to death for helping to plan the Bali bombings.

He had instructed his legal team not to appeal against the decision.

But yesterday lawyers for Amrozi visited their client in a police cell and obtained the signature needed to launch an appeal against the death sentence.

Chief defence lawyer Wirawan Adnan says Amrozi is not seeking leniency, but he believes his life is not in the hands of judges.

He says his client does not want to be a "whiner" by asking for their mercy.

Amrozi's lawyers will not appeal on the basis their client is innocent, rather that he has been denied due process.

The appeal will be lodged with Bali's High Court on Monday.

Legal experts say a second appeal could be made to Indonesia's national court, a process that could take six months to a year.

Finally there could be a mercy plea direct to Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s920651.htm

(More coverage of Bali bombing:

Aftermath: http://www.abc.net.au/news/indepth/bali/

Photos: http://www.abc.net.au/news/indepth/bali/bali_bomb_gallery/pages/pic1.htm

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Apparently, from legal opinions I have heard on the radio, Amrozi's appeal is highly likely to be successful.

He was charged only with terrorism, not with murder, property damage, assault, explosive offences etc.

Terrorism was a crime created only after last year's bombing, and Indonesia's 2000 (post-Suharto) constitution absolutely forbids conviction under laws that were not in effect at the time of the offense.

It will be a difficult matter for the Appeals Court in Indonesia, since the Indonesian Government recognizes that these terror bombings are an attempt to destabilize and bring down the current Indonesian state, and replace it with a theocracy. One imagines it will be a eal test for Indonesia's new attempts to have a government that is not, in effect, a dictatorship.

There is also criticism in Australia, a country which outlawed capital punishment in the 1960's, of our Prime Minister's and Foreign Affairs Minister's, expression of approval for the conviction and sentence.

Some Australian victims, and relatives, have also expressed distress at the death sentence.

It would be interesting to hear from the Balinese - who were the true victims of the bombing - not only in the sense that many died, or were horrifically injured, but in the sense that their fragile, tourist based economy, has more or less collapsed, causing terrible hardship.

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Will he even appeal? He claims to want to die.

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he has now signed on for appeal.

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'Tis interesting, at least to me, to speculate what, if any difference, it has made to the victims of Amrozi etc that there have been people to try - as opposed to the WTC - (I imagine sheer scale would make that one harder to deal with, though I do not know.)

Mind you, people expecting justice via court processes are generally disappointed, usually finding only law....

I wonder, too, if by "justice" people really mean revenge...

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First Bali Terrorist Bomber Convicted and Sentenced.

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