Court sentences Bali bomb mastermind to death

A court in Indonesia sentenced to death the mastermind of the Bali nightclub bombings yesterday in a trial that has focused attention on the government's resolve to tackle radical Islam.

The penalty imposed on Imam Samudra, who was unrepentant and denounced the United States and Australia before being led from court, was the second death sentence imposed on those accused of carrying out the October 12 bombings on the resort island.

It followed criticism in the West of a four-year jail term imposed last week on Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, a man described by investigators as the spiritual leader of the group blamed for the attacks that killed 202 people.

"The defendant worked behind the scenes as the coordinator so the panel of judges has an opinion that the defendant is the intellectual actor behind the bomb explosions," Judge Isa Sudewi, one of the five-member panel, said of 33-year-old Samudra.

"It was his purpose in order to take revenge against what the United States did in Afghanistan," he told the court.

The bombings of two nightclubs along Bali's famous Kuta Beach were the worst terror attack since the September 11, 2001, strikes on the United States.

Most of those killed were Australian and other Western tourists partying on the island, a Hindu enclave in the world's most populous Muslim country.

Samudra, a radical Muslim and an engineering graduate and computer expert, was charged with plotting, organising and carrying out premeditated terror crimes causing mass casualties. Investigators say he learned to make bombs in Afghanistan.

Earlier, he had welcomed the prospect of a death sentence, which in Indonesia is carried out by firing squad.

On hearing the sentence, he punched the air and shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest).

Before being led out, he shouted "America, Australia go to hell!" at an Australian who waved his national flag adorned with photographs of the 88 Australians killed in the attacks. But the defence said it would appeal. "The way they proved the case was far from perfect," lawyer Achmad Michdan said. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer welcomed the verdict.

The tough sentences sought by prosecutors - and so far given - in the Bali trials have been generally interpreted as a sign that Indonesia's secular government is determined to root out militant Islam.

But a September 2 decision by a Jakarta court to sentence Bashir to just four years in prison for abetting acts of treason raised eyebrows in the West, particularly in Australia.

Prosecutors had sought 15 years for Bashir, but based their case on the contention that the cleric was the spiritual leader of the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah group.