Australians whose lives were changed following the 2002 Bali bombings were angered and frustrated as Indonesia released Umar Patek on Wednesday, one of the key accused who stands guilty of making the bombs.
Indonesia said that Patek has been deradicalised and granted him parole. This sparked anger among several Australians, especially among those who were present in the nightclubs where the bombings occurred.
The blasts which occurred on October 12 led to deaths of 202 people belonging to 21 different countries. 88 victims of the bomb blast were from Australia.
Andrew Csabi, one of the victims of the bomb blast speaking to the BBC said his life changed forever. The blasts left Csabi a double amputee.
Patek was a member of the al-Qaeda-inspired Jemaah Islamiah (JI) group. He was on the run for a decade and he was jailed in 2012 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison and he served only half of his initial sentence.
“This guy gets his life back again. For a lot of us we’ll never get our lives back again,” another victim Jan Laczynski, an Australian who lost five friends in the bombings, told the BBC on Thursday.
This is not the first time Indonesia - the nation with world’s largest Muslim-population - has been lax on those accused for Bali bombings. Indonesia in 2021 released Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, who is the alleged mastermind behind the bombings.
The victims of the Bali bombings find it hard to believe that Patek is reformed. “ I’ve seen him close up. He didn’t seem deradicalised to me…. I don’t buy that at all,” Laczynski was quoted as saying by the BBC.
The Australian government has lobbied against Patek’s release and called for close surveillance. Australian minister Chris Bowen said Australians have all right to feel disappointed and concerned by this news.
Patek will join a ‘mentoring programme’ until April 2030 and if he commits any violations his parole will be revoked.
Indonesia has taken some sharp turns towards religious authoritarianism.
Earlier this week it criminalised extra-marital affairs and cohabitation of unmarried couples. Observers fear Indonesia is drifting away from its Pancasila, the five foundational principles of the nation, where secularism is held in high regard.
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