Bomb maker set for release
ANTHONY Albanese says the federal government will raise concerns with Indonesia after Bali bomber Umar Patek was given the green light to walk free from prison within days.
Patek has been granted parole after serving just half of a 20-year sentence over his role in the 2002 terror attacks that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Patek, whose real name is Hisyam bin Ali Zein, was due for release from Surabaya’s Porong prison next January.
Instead he was granted a five-month remission on Wednesday – Indonesia’s 77th Independence Day, when the government traditionally reduces the sentences of thousands of prisoners.
Zaeroji, a regional director of Indonesia’s Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights in East Java, said Patek had “behaved very well” in prison and had vowed to abide by the laws of the Republic of Indonesia.
“The remission given has been measured and through careful consideration,” Zaeroji said.
But, he added, Patek had not yet been freed from jail because the ministry was still waiting to receive formal remission documents from the prisons authority.
The Prime Minister said he had nothing but “contempt and disgust” for the bomb maker who assembled explosives used to conduct the Bali terrorist attack.
Mr Albanese said he had “no sympathy” for Patek, and argued his early release will add to the trauma of the families of the 88 Australians who lost their lives in the terrorist attack ahead of the event’s 20th anniversary.
He said Canberra continued to make “representations” to Jakarta in the nation’s interest.
“We will certainly be making diplomatic representations,” Mr Albanese said.
“Someone who engages in that sort of activity, I have no sympathy for them.
“We had over 200 people lost their lives, including those 88 Australians, and I have nothing but contempt and disgust for this man and the terrorist actions that he engaged in.”
Patek’s release will come as unwelcome news to survivors of the Bali bombing and relatives of victims, less than two months before many are preparing to mark the 20th anniversary of the deadly terror attack.
Jan Laczynski, a Melbourne man who left the Sari Club just before the blasts but lost five friends in the attack, said he had not expected Patek to be freed so soon and that his release would cause great distress to many Australians.
“We only just endured seeing Abu Bakar Bashir walk out last year and now we are seeing Umar Patek,” he said, referring to the radical Indonesian cleric and spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, the militant group behind the attack, who was released last year.
“Who’s it going to be next? Ali Iron, the guy who drove the vehicle? It seems the door has been opened with the release of all these Bali bombers that are in jail but there is no release for Australian families.”
Ali Iron is serving a life sentence in Indonesia for his role in the attack. His brothers, Ali Ghufron and Amrozi, were executed in 2008 for their involvement.
The alleged Bali bombing mastermind Hambali, also known as Encep Nurjaman, is still awaiting trial in the US after being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006.
Some Indonesian terror analysts said on Thursday they did not believe Patek posed a threat on his release, despite the fact he was a senior member of Jemaah Islamiah.
But Deakin University terror analyst Greg Barton said he believed the explosives expert – known as “demolition man” – could still pose a “longer-term threat”.
“Recidivism rates for terror convicts in Indonesia are reasonably high because there are still active networks and residual levels of support,” he said. “Most who come out are not going to be recidivists but because the absolute numbers are high even a 5 per cent recidivism rate is still a large number of individuals.”
Several hundred terror convicts in Indonesia are expected to be released by the end of 2023, he added.
Patek was arrested in January 2011 in Abbottabad, the Pakistani town where Osama bin Laden was later killed in a US raid, and extradited to Indonesia that year.
He was sentenced in Jakarta in 2012 for his role in the blasts that ripped through the Sari Club and Paddy’s Irish Bar in Bali’s nightclub district of Kuta on October 12, 2002, as well as a series of deadly Christmas Eve attacks on Jakarta churches in 2000.
Patek admitted to helping mix chemicals for the Bali bomb, but always denied being the chief bomb maker.