Bali High Court upholds Gufron's death sentence

Bali High Court upholds Gufron's death sentence

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Bali High Court upheld the death verdict on one of the Bali
bombers, Ali Gufron, and increased the sentence of one of his
accomplices by three years.

The High Court considered there was no reason for the
convicted bombers to appeal as all the evidence supported the
district court's decision to sentence him to death.

"The new verdicts from the High Court upheld the earlier
decision from the district court and one of them got an
additional three years in jail," High Court chief I Made Tara
said on Sunday, as quoted by Antara.

The accomplice, Hernianto, was sentenced to a 15-year jail
term, after an earlier sentence of 12 years had been issued by
the Denpasar district court.

Along with the appeals of Ali Gufron and Hernianto, the Bali
High Court has so far rejected the appeals of 18 convicted Bali
bombers.

Among the 18 cases were other convicts facing the death
sentence including Amrozy, Imam Samudra, Junaedi, Andi Hidayat
and Abdul Rauf. Amrozy is currently awaiting a decision from the
Supreme Court as he appealed the decision of Bali High Court,
which upheld his death sentence.

From the 29 people that have been sentenced for the bombing,
10 accepted the verdicts while 19 appealed the decision of the
district court.

A total of 35 people have been arrested and are undergoing
legal processing for the Oct. 12, 2002 Bali bombing that killed
202 people, mostly foreign tourists. The joint investigation
between the Indonesian police and Australian Federal Police (AFP)
uncovered the network of the Jamaah Islamiyah organization, which
is blamed for the bombing.

Police are still hunting for other suspects such as Malaysian
Azahari and Nurdin Mohammad Top.

Four other suspects undergoing trial at the Denpasar district
court are Suranto Abdul Ghoni, Sarjiyo, Achmad Roichan and
Hafidin.