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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...

Victim's brother targeted bomber By John Stapleton16sep03 THE brother of a Bali bombing victim has claimed he travelled to the island to kill one of the bombers during the trials. "The courtroom - well I tell you straight, I had organised my will and I was going there to kill him," Louie Zervos told the ABC's Four Corners last night. "I got there the day before and I went to kill him. "I finally got my senses about me and I couldn't really move in anyway, the feds were all over me." Mr Zervos, from the eastern Sydney suburb...

Bali's District Court has sentenced an Indonesian man to six years in jail for hiding one of the Bali bombers. Hafidin, also known as Munawar, was found guilty of hiding Imam Samudra, the man acknowledged as the mastermind of the bombings. Hafidin hid Samudra while he was on the run in western Java, where police arrested him in November 2002.

A NEW breed of homegrown 'twentysomething terrorists' is poised to strike at Indonesia's international hotels with a wave of suicide bombings in December. These new generation Jemaah Islamiah terrorists are every bit as deadly and fanatically anti-American as captured leaders Hambali and Imam Samudra, said intelligence sources. The Sunday Times understands that 12 of them, drawn from six terrorist cells in Indonesia, plan to turn the festive December season into a bloody nightmare. Sources disclosed that at a meeting of JI leaders in East Kalimantan in March, Zulkarnaen, their new chief, and Azahari Husin, JI's master bomb-maker, chose the...

Today, as Americans quietly mourn the tragedy of 9/11, an extremist British Islamic group is convening a conference in London, England, dedicated to "The Magnificent Nineteen" — the suicide hijackers who caused more than 3,000 deaths in the United States. Hundreds of young British Muslims are expected to attend. Happy anniversary. The participants will explore, according to the self-styled emir of the al-Muhajiroun hosting group, the root causes of the terrorist attack. Although faces of the 19 hijackers were prominently displayed on flyers promoting the event, Omar Bakri Mohammed claims, with casual disingenuousness, that the meeting will not be a...

BALI, Indonesia - An Islamic militant was sentenced Wednesday to be executed by firing squad after judges found him guilty of being the "intellectual mastermind" behind last year's deadly nightclub bombings on Bali island. "Imam Samudra has been clearly proven to have planned a terrorist act, and we hand down the sentence of death," Judge Wayan Sugawa said. Samudra shouted "God is Great" after the verdict was read, while several people in courtroom cheered. MORE

BALI, Indonesia -- The alleged mastermind of last year's deadly Bali bombings testified Monday that he is not afraid of a death sentence but denied involvement in the blasts. Imam Samudra, a 33-year-old textile merchant, declared his innocence when he read out a formal defense plea in the Oct. 12 blasts that killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists. "I am not afraid of being sentenced to death because what I have done so far has put me on the road to Allah, and is in line with the teachings of Islam," he said. Prosecutors said Samudra -- who...

LEADING his lawyers in a series of Islamic chants, accused Bali bombing mastermind Imam Samudra faced trial yesterday, not denying his role in the atrocity but challenging the laws Indonesia is using to prosecute him. "Alahu Akhbar," Samudra shouted as he took the accused's chair. He followed up with three cries of "Exalt him", which his lawyers echoed loudly. After the 43-page prosecution indictment was read to the Denpasar District Court, Samudra's chief counsel, Quadhar Faisal, claimed the involvement of foreign police in the investigation had been an obstruction of justice and said his client's main sentence for the Bali...

THE alleged field commander of the Bali bombings, Imam Samudra, yesterday threatened a new terror campaign would follow the three blasts that killed at least 34 in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh. As he was being led from the prosecutor's office to an armoured police van in Denpasar in Bali, Imam Samudra shouted: "After Riyadh there will be another one." He also repeatedly yelled "Aluha Akhbar (God is Great) and America will be destroyed". Imam Samudra's taunts were interpreted as an attempt to inspire followers of the Jemaah Islamiah terrorist group in which he once held a senior position. Local...

JAKARTA, Indonesia, March 11 (UPI) -- Indonesian police Tuesday linked several key suspects in last October's Bali bombings to an explosion two years ago that killed two people outside the residence of the Philippines ambassador in Jakarta. Police said that information from Fathurachman al-Gozhi, an Indonesian Muslim militant serving a jail sentence in Manila for possession of explosives, police identified several of the Bali bombing suspects as participants in the Aug. 1, 2000 blast in Jakarta, said Jakarta city police spokesman Senior Commissioner Prasetyo. Police also said Imam Samudra, the alleged mastermind of the deadly Bali terrorist attack, was involved...

The bombs that ripped apart Paddys Bar and the Sari Club at the Balinese resort of Kuta on October 12 have reverberated through the surrounding region and exposed the zealots who wish to subdue it to Islam. While jolting the nations of the southwest Pacific into an unprecedented level of fear and alert, the bombs have also laid bare a network of terror lacing Southeast Asia to the Middle East, Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden. New arrests in the past two weeks have also demonstrated a response by police and intelligence agencies that has overcome frequently brittle diplomatic relations, reaching...

Bashir's warning to Australians December 13 2002 By Stephen Gibbs, Matthew Moore Jakarta The man who Western governments say is the spiritual leader of the terrorist group accused of masterminding the Bali bombing says Australia will be "destroyed instantly" if it launches a pre-emptive strike against terrorist targets in other countries. Abu Bakar Bashir, the cleric accused of heading recently banned South-East Asian group Jemaah Islamiah, said Australians would be dragged into a war with Muslims if they went along with the "crazy idea" of a pre-emptive strike floated recently by Prime Minister John Howard. "So, if John Howard's stance...

THE Bali terror bombing which killed more than 190 people and caused millions of dollars in losses cost just $US30,000 ($A54,000) to finance, the chief investigator into the blast said today. A man called Mukhlas, who was arrested on Tuesday and is operations chief of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) regional network, has admitted accepting the cash in two installments from a Malaysian called Wan Min, said the investigator, I Made Mangku Pastika. Pastika said the money had been "all spent and gone" and that Wan Min was now detained in Malaysia. Police are still investigating who gave the money to...

A key suspect in the Bali bombing cried out in Indonesian "America will be destroyed" as he was moved Friday from the capital to the resort island for more questioning. Heavily armed guards wearing face masks escorted Imam Samudra and four others for the charter flight to Bali, before which Samudra also yelled twice in Arabic, "God is great."Indonesian intelligence officials said Samudra took orders from Mukhlas, also known as Ali Gufron, the operational chief of Jemaah Islamiya, a Southeast Asian terror group that is linked to al-Qaida.Mukhlas was arrested Tuesday, and police said he has confessed to helping plan...

HE is the evil terrorist who masterminded the bombing that destroyed the lives of 87 Australians. She is the innocent child whose beloved parents were stolen from her. Their paths should never have crossed. But when they did, the consequences for Candice Buchan, 15, were unthinkable. Only hours after Imam Samudra's arrest, Indonesia's most wanted man – facing the death penalty for his role in the Bali bombings – appeared relaxed and unconcerned, despite being shackled and blindfolded. But in Sydney yesterday, with the pain and loneliness of the past seven weeks etched into her features, Candice said goodbye to...

JAKARTA: The alleged mastermind of the deadly Bali bombing has admitted he knows a suspected leading al-Qaeda operative called Hambali, Indonesian police said Wednesday. National police chief General Da’i Bachtiar said Imam Samudra, who was arrested last Thursday while on the run after Bali, previously denied knowing Hambali “but after we showed him evidence, he admitted knowing him.” Hambali, an Indonesian whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, is being hunted by five governments. He is the suspected operations chief of Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and is also believed to be a leading member of Osama bin Laden’s...

INDONESIAN police said overnight that in addition to the two main suspects in last month's Bali bombings, they also have detained 13 accomplices who were indirectly involved. Seven alleged accomplices were picked up in different parts of Indonesia yesterday, said police spokesman Brigadier General Edward Aritonang. They included a man, identified only as Agus, who was arrested in West Java province on suspicion of having robbed a jewellery shop, the proceeds of which were later used to finance the October 12 attacks, said Aritonang. The other six suspects were taken into custody in Riau province, said Aritonang. Four of them...

'I WANT to say sorry to you, but all I want to do is commit myself to jihad.' Iqbal, probably southeast Asia's first suicide bomber, wrote this to his parents in the days before he walked into Paddy's bar in Bali and detonated a 1kg shrapnel bomb, killing himself and a crowd of holidaymakers. Police sources say the letter spoke of martyrdom and was a farewell to his parents, who live in the West Javanese town of Malimping, Serang. Written in the West Javanese Sunda language and found in the home of an accomplice named Yudi, the letter backs a...

25 Nov 2002 02:30 Key Bali bombing suspect moved to Jakarta JAKARTA, Nov 25 (Reuters) - The man Indonesian police identify as the mastermind of last month's Bali bombings has been moved to Jakarta for further questioning, deputy National Police spokesman Edward Aritonang said on Monday. Asked whether Imam Samudra had now been moved to the capital, Aritonang told Reuters: "Yes, the questioning starts today (in Jakarta)." Samudra was arrested in Banten province in western Java on Thursday and held there for questioning. Over the weekend, police conducted a number of house searches in the area as well as in...

INDONESIAN police last night caught the mastermind of the Bali bombing in western Java as he attempted to flee to neighbouring Sumatra. Imam Samudra, aka Abdul Azis, was captured by police in Merak, at the northwestern tip of Java, about 9pm Sydney time as he was boarding a ferry. Samudra had with him several bodyguards who were also arrested at the port town, 140km from Jakarta. Indonesian police chief Dai Bachtiar last night confirmed the arrest and said it planned to take him to either Jakarta or Bali for questioning. On Sunday, police named Samudra, aged in his 30s, as...