By Xinhua
Jakarta : Indonesia Tuesday said that the execution of three convicted Bali bombers will not to be carried out in near future as the government has to await their decision whether they will seek a presidential pardon.
“They have said earlier they will never ask the presidential pardon. But if they will, then we must wait,” Bonaventura Nainggolan, spokesman of Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office (AGO), told reporters here.
The trio – Imam Samudera, Amrozi and his older brother Ali Ghufron – have been convicted and sentenced to death by the Denpasar district court for plotting and carrying out the October 2002 bombings at two nightclubs on Bali island that killed 202 people.
The calls for their execution have been mounting since their lawyers withdrew their request for a judicial review, which according to the Indonesian law becomes the final appeal.
But inmates on the death row can ask a presidential pardon, and if accepted, it will commute the capital punishment to imprisonment for life.
The Bali bombers have defiantly dismissed such an effort, arguing that seeking a pardon would imply that they plead guilty.
Nainggolan said the inmates are given 30 days to decide and the execution by the firing squad may take place if they are not pardoned.