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Bali bombing cleric attacks western tourists By Nick Squires in Sydney Last Updated: 1:56am GMT 25/03/2008 Western tourists in Indonesia are "maggots, snakes and worms" who should be beaten up, the alleged mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings has told hardline Islamic followers. Abu Bakar Bashir, the cleric who was convicted of conspiracy over the Bali bombings but later cleared and released from prison after 26 months, said the island resort had been overrun by scantily-clad tourists who deserved to be attacked for their immorality. "Worms, snakes, maggots... those are animals that crawl. Take a look at Bali... those infidel...

AN Indonesian Islamic cleric linked to the three extremists awaiting execution for the Bali bombings said today the 2002 attack which killed more than 200 people was the work of the CIA. Abu Bakar Bashir told AFP the US intelligence agency had fired a nuclear missile at the Bali tourist strip from a ship off the coast. "It has been mentioned as being a micro-nuclear bomb, not a regular bomb... The bomb was made by the CIA, it could be no one else," he said in his house at the Al-Mukmin Islamic boarding school on Indonesia's Java island. He said...

THREE Bali bombers on death row over the 2002 bombings could soon be executed after a dramatic end to their final appeal today. Their lawyer Fahmi Bachmid today withdrew from their last-ditch legal appeal, bringing it to an abrupt end. Outside court, Chief Judge Ida Bagus Putu Madeg said the judges would now treat the appeal, known as a judicial review, as if it had "never existed". "With this, whatever happened in the previous hearings is considered to not exist," Madeg told AAP after the hearing for convicted terrorist Imam Samudra. "We will not convey this (case) to the Supreme...

THE three Bali bombers on death row say they are ready to die and will not be asking for a pardon. They have also expressed delight at the controversy surrounding their impending executions, saying the more pain they cause, the greater their reward in heaven. "I'm very happy, especially after hearing that John Howard is very angry with us," Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, the so-called smiling assassin, said yesterday at the island prison where he is held. "The more he is angry, the more I will get rewards from God, right? "The more I make infidels angry, the more I will...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A court on Indonesia's Sulawesi island Thursday sentenced to seven years in jail a Muslim militant convicted of involvement in the bombing of a McDonald's restaurant that killed three people. Also on Thursday, a Muslim preacher who faces the death sentence for his alleged role in last year's Bali bombings said he was "small fry'' compared to "big terrorists'' like Adolf Hitler, U.S. President George W. Bush and the leaders of Britain and Israel. Prosecutors in the Bali case say Ali Ghufron, 43, had "general responsibility'' for planning, funding and carrying out the Oct. 12 attack...