Zach LarkinsA LITTLE JUSTICE
Indonesia seems to be serious. From Jakarta comes the story of three Islamic militants who were sentenced for beheading three Christian schoolgirls and dumping their bloodied heads in nearby villages. The sentences ranged from 14 to 20 years. The members of the al Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah network left a handwritten note close to the bodies, vowing more killings to avenge the deaths of Muslims in earlier sectarian violence on Sulawesi island.
"Wanted - 100 more heads. Blood must be paid with blood, lives with lives, heads with heads," read Judge Lilik Mulyadi, reciting the letter's text. Hasanuddin, 34, who goes by a single name, was sentenced to 20 years for masterminding the 2005 attack, and co-conspirators Lilik Purnomo, 28, and Irwanto Irano, 29, each got 14 years. It's not much, but it is a start. Who says democracies don't lean over backwards to pamper the criminal? These three had faced a maximum penalty of death by firing squad, but judges ruled that they deserved some leniency for co-operating with authorities, confessing and showing remorse. Wow. It seems everyone in prison can find Jesus if it is their lives that are on the line. One supposes that these three failed suicide-murder school and were relegated to mere beheadings. Maybe they were working their way up the chain of command. Who knows?
Hasanuddin had apparently ordered the slayings and helped dump the girls' heads in three Christian dominated villages. Purnomo and Irano were found guilty of "ambushing and beheading" the teens. It wasn't immediately clear if the three convicts would appeal, but isn't it the Dem/Lib way to let them appeal?
More than 90 per cent of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslims, but Central Sulawesi province, the scene of religious clashes that left at least 1,000 people dead from 1998 to 2002, has a roughly equal number of Muslims and Christians. A peace agreement ended the worst of the violence, but tensions flared after the 2005 beheadings and again in September 2006, after the execution of three Roman Catholics.
It is nice to see that Indonesia is taking a stand against terrorists. Maybe their thinking will trickle down to us in North America. By the way, where are the agitators protesting the treatment of the British sailors held hostage in Iran, the same way they protest the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo?
"Wanted - 100 more heads. Blood must be paid with blood, lives with lives, heads with heads," read Judge Lilik Mulyadi, reciting the letter's text. Hasanuddin, 34, who goes by a single name, was sentenced to 20 years for masterminding the 2005 attack, and co-conspirators Lilik Purnomo, 28, and Irwanto Irano, 29, each got 14 years. It's not much, but it is a start. Who says democracies don't lean over backwards to pamper the criminal? These three had faced a maximum penalty of death by firing squad, but judges ruled that they deserved some leniency for co-operating with authorities, confessing and showing remorse. Wow. It seems everyone in prison can find Jesus if it is their lives that are on the line. One supposes that these three failed suicide-murder school and were relegated to mere beheadings. Maybe they were working their way up the chain of command. Who knows?
Hasanuddin had apparently ordered the slayings and helped dump the girls' heads in three Christian dominated villages. Purnomo and Irano were found guilty of "ambushing and beheading" the teens. It wasn't immediately clear if the three convicts would appeal, but isn't it the Dem/Lib way to let them appeal?
More than 90 per cent of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslims, but Central Sulawesi province, the scene of religious clashes that left at least 1,000 people dead from 1998 to 2002, has a roughly equal number of Muslims and Christians. A peace agreement ended the worst of the violence, but tensions flared after the 2005 beheadings and again in September 2006, after the execution of three Roman Catholics.
It is nice to see that Indonesia is taking a stand against terrorists. Maybe their thinking will trickle down to us in North America. By the way, where are the agitators protesting the treatment of the British sailors held hostage in Iran, the same way they protest the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo?
