Family defiant as Indonesia awaits bombers' execution

TENGGULUN, Indonesia, Saturday (AFP)

The family of two Islamist militants awaiting execution for the Bali bombings which killed 202 people said Saturday paradise awaited them after the firing squads.

Muhammed Chozin, the 52-year-old elder brother of condemned jihadists Amrozi and Mukhlas, told AFP in the bombers' home village the family saw the looming execution as "good news."

Authorities have said the brothers and fellow bomber Imam Samudra could face the firing squad any time from Saturday until mid-November over the 2002 attack against Western tourists on the holiday island.

"The family don't feel burdened by the execution, in fact we're happy because it means God and the prophet have given good news," Chozin said in the Islamic boarding school he runs in this small East Java coastal village.

"If they die because they are standing up for the religion they will be placed in paradise," he said.

The 70-year-old mother of the two bombers said on Friday night her sons were right to "kill infidels."

"I don't cry. I leave it all to God," Tariem said after returning from praying at the mosque.

"I feel that killing infidels isn't a mistake because they don't pray," she said, sitting on the stone floor of the family home surrounded by Amrozi's children and wife.

Hordes of journalists and camera crews have descended on the sleepy village of wooden houses and fields of maize and rice to wait out the executions, which are the first under Indonesia's anti-terrorism laws.

Lawyers for the bombers have launched a string of appeals to delay the death sentences being carried out, and said Saturday they would launch a fresh, unspecified, legal bid to save the bombers' lives.

Family members for all three bombers and their lawyers have flown to Jakarta and will later go to Bali to present an "extraordinary" appeal to the Bali court that convicted them, lawyer Fahmi Bachmid told AFP.

Bachmid refused to specify what kind of legal appeal the lawyers would make. Indonesian authorities and the Supreme Court have said the bombers have exhausted all avenues for appeal, except for seeking presidential clemency.