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.