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The judgement of the Indonesian government in reducing the sentence of one of the bombmakers in the Bali terror attack that killed 202 people is heavily flawed.
Umar Patek was jailed for 20 years in 2012, after being found guilty of helping mix the bombs used to inflict mass murder at two tourist bars on the island in 2002.
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A member of al-Qaeda-linked militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, he was also sentenced for his part in bombing churches in Jakarta.
In a major lapse of judgement, Patek has been granted a five-month reduction in his sentence to mark Indonesia’s independence day, making him now eligible for parole. The timing of the sentence reduction comes a few months before the 20th anniversary of the attack, and has annoyed families and friends of the terrorist’s victims.
Eighty-eight Australians, 38 Indonesians and 23 Britons were among those killed when a suicide bomber triggered his device inside Paddy’s Irish bar on 12 October 2002.
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The attacks, which left another 209 people injured, were executed out by members of Jemaah Islamiyah—a violent Islamist group affiliated with al Qaeda. The evil terrorists explained the attack to be partly a retaliation for the U.S. War on Terror. Seven Americans were among the dead.
Seconds later, as people fled into the street, a van full of explosives was detonated at the nearby Sari Club, badly badly burning several in the attack, putting huge pressure on local hospitals.
The Australian prime minister expressed his horror at the decision to release the dangerous criminal early.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he’d been told by Indonesian authorities that Umar Patek’s sentence had been reduced by another five months, taking his total reductions to almost two years.
That means Patek could be released on parole ahead of the 20th anniversary of the bombings in October.
“This will cause further distress to Australians who were the families of victims of the Bali bombings,” Albanese told Channel 9. “We lost 88 Australian lives in those bombings.”
Albanese said he would continue making “diplomatic representations” to Indonesia about Patek’s sentence and a range of other issues, including Australians currently jailed in Indonesia. Albanese described Patek as “abhorrent.”
“His actions were the actions of a terrorist,” Albanese told Channel 9. “They did have such dreadful results for Australian families that are ongoing, the trauma which is there.”
“They (Indonesia) informed us of that decision, and we informed them of our view of that decision,” Prime Minister Albanese said.
“They have a system whereby when anniversaries occur, quite often sentences are reduced and commuted for people.
“But when it comes to someone who’s committed such a heinous crime, a designer and maker of a bomb designed to kill people, to kill and maim, then we have a very strong view,” he said.
The Indonesian government are expected to know all the problems associated with their ill advised announcement.
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