Terrorists' penalty: Death without honor

Terrorists' penalty: Death without honor

Steve Crewe, Technical Advisor, Moores Rowland Indonesia, Jakarta

There are some crimes which are so callous that their
perpetrators deserve to forfeit their lives. The intentional
murder of innocent civilians through acts of terrorism is one.

Thus, despite the antagonism of Amnesty International and
member nations of the European Union to capital punishment,
Indonesia has taken the right course of action in seeking the
death penalty for those found guilty of the Bali bombing and,
when caught, those responsible for the JW Marriott bombing. The
problem is however, how not to make martyrs out of them by so
doing.

Perceptions in regard to executions have changed over the
centuries and in most countries executions are no longer the
public spectacles they once were. The idea that the threat of
execution acts as a deterrent has long been proven false; thus
the removal from society of those who have forfeited their right
to exist is usually carried out with as little publicity as
possible.

In the same way that perceptions have changed, so too have the
methods of execution, although these still vary from country to
country. It is important that the process be as efficient as
possible, for it must not be construed as an act of vengeance but
rather as a surgical procedure to remove a cancerous cell from
the healthy body of society.

It is interesting to see how the methods of execution have
changed even within the United States, which is almost alone in
western nations in retaining the death penalty. There they no
longer burn witches at the stake, nor do they hang people, as
this was too closely associated with the lynch mobs of the late
19th and early 20th centuries that remain a dark stain on that
nation's history.

Likewise the gas chamber had its tenuous associations with the
Nazi concentration camps, while some bungled executions raise
questions as to efficiency of the electric chair. Death by lethal
injection is now the favored method.

Although stoning to death is rarely practiced in Islamic
countries nowadays, there are those like Saudi Arabia that retain
execution by chopping off the person's head. In Indonesia
however, although the Dutch used death by hanging, the style of
execution used by the modern Republic is death by firing squad.

In most countries though the firing squad has usually been the
method of execution for the military, especially in times of war,
although during World War II certain Japanese believed they
honored their prisoners by decapitating them. Nevertheless, death
in front of a firing squad is usually viewed as bestowing some
degree of honor on the victim, as in the case of the German's
execution of Mata Hari in World War I. Common murderers are
normally dispatched by other means.

The question to be raised is that by sentencing the likes of
Amrozi to death by firing squad are we not in fact paying them an
honor they in no way deserve? While they may view themselves as
"soldiers" for a cause, by their very actions they have stepped
so far outside the bounds of human decency that they are no
longer worthy of any respect. And there are precedents for this.

At the Nuremberg trials following World War II for example,
Reichmarshal Hermann Goering asked that if found guilty whether
he, as a military officer would be permitted a military
execution, death by firing squad.

He was told that the crimes of which he was accused were so
heinous that he had forfeited the right of an honorable death and
if found guilty he would be hung like any common murderer. In the
event however, he thwarted them all by committing suicide.

Just as the world did not mourn the passing of the Nazi war
criminals, neither should it mourn the passing of those whose
twisted sense of purpose has seen them murder even their fellow
countrymen without compassion.

Rather than a firing squad, surely an ignominious end by the
hangman's noose for example would be more appropriate. As they
honored not their innocent and unsuspecting victims, neither do
they deserve the slightest modicum of honor. It is more than
enough that they will know the hour of their death. Others did
not.