JAKARTA (AFP) — Everything is in place for the three men sentenced to death over the 2002 Bali bombings to be executed as early as Saturday morning, a senior Indonesian official said.
Security forces were on alert Thursday on the prison island of Nusakambangan off southern Java where the Islamist extremists -- Amrozi, 47, his brother Mukhlas, 48, and Imam Samudra, 38 -- are being held.
"All preparations are ready. Security forces have been boosted. The execution can be anytime between November 1 and November 20," Deputy Attorney-General Abdul Hakim Ritonga told AFP.
Lawyers for the bombers said authorities had not informed them of their clients' execution, which they are obliged to do at least three days before the sentence is carried out.
The members of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional militant group were sentenced to death in 2003 for the attacks on packed nightspots on the resort island of Bali which killed 202 people, mainly foreign tourists.
Their executions have been repeatedly delayed by a string of failed appeals and religious considerations.
Ritonga said authorities would take the unusual step of flying the bombers' bodies by helicopter to their villages in east and west Java, so they could be buried in line with Muslim tradition.
"As Muslims they should be buried as soon as possible. It will take too long to send the bodies by road but less than an hour by helicopter," he said.
Authorities are also concerned over potential unrest at the southern Java port of Cilacap, where the bodies would have been brought from the prison island if they were being transported as usual by road to their villages.
Security has been visibly boosted with armoured anti-riot vehicles patrolling the town amid reports that hundreds of Islamist radicals are preparing to rally in protest against the executions.
The Antara state news agency reported rumours of the arrest of a Jamaah Islamiyah militant near Cilacap but police dismissed the report as false.
Tensions have been fuelled by the arrest last week of an alleged terrorist cell in Jakarta which was plotting to bomb the city's main fuel depot.
One of the five men detained is facing charges under anti-terror laws but the others have been released, police said Wednesday.
The bombers themselves have welcomed death but promised retribution for the executions, which have been delayed by a string of failed appeals and religious considerations.
Some of their supporters are hoping to build shrines and monuments in honour of the "holy warriors." One sympathiser has even suggested burying them together in a new "martyrs cemetery."
Cecep Hermawan, of the hardline Islamic Reformist Movement, said he had offered a hectare (2.5 acres) of land in Cianjur, West Java, as the last resting place for the three bombers and others like them.
"They should be champions of Islam, good and honest people. Having a shrine would strengthen the bond among the families of these fighters," Hermawan said.
"For the three men, the movement is willing to foot the funeral costs. I have approached their families and they have said 'no problem'."
But Ali Fauzi, the youngest brother of Amrozi and Mukhlas, said the bombers would be buried beside their father's grave in their village in Tenggulun in East Java.
"We still have plenty of land to bury them," Fauzi said, adding that the funeral ceremony would be simple.
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