AGO set to execute convicts in 2000 Poso mass killings

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Attorney General's Office (AGO) will not wait much longer to execute three men sentenced to death for sparking a major Muslim- Christian conflict in Poso, Central Sulawesi, in 2000.

Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh told reporters on Friday that the three death-row convicts would soon face the firing squad after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono refused to grant clemency to them.

"I've been phoned by State Secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra about it, but the letter (on the rejection of the clemency request) has not arrived yet. Maybe it's still on its way," Abdul Rahman said.

He, however, did not say precisely when the execution would be carried out.

Yusril said on Thursday that the President had refused to grant amnesty to Fabianus Tibo, 60, Dominggus da Silva, 42, and Don Marinus Riwu, 48 -- all of them Christians.

According to the law, the AGO is in charge of implementing the executions, which will be carried out by firing squad. A firing squad is composed of 12 police officers, six of whom fire live bullets.

The Palu District Court sentenced the three men, all Christians, in April 2001 to death for inciting the bloody conflict in Poso, which left well over a thousand dead. A government-sponsored truce was reached at the end of 2001.

The court ruled that Tibo, da Silva and Riwu were responsible for a series of murders between May 23 and June 30, 2000.

The death sentences were upheld by the Central Sulawesi High Court in May 2001 and the Supreme Court in November 2001.

The President's decision to reject the clemency request comes as renewed terror threats emerged in Poso lately with the beheadings of three Christian school girls last month, and the shooting of two other teenaged girls last week. Both of those attacks were perpetrated by as yet unidentified men.