Australian PM says it’s ‘upsetting’ Indonesia has reduced Bali bomb maker’s prison sentence

Umar Patek was sentenced to 20 years in prison

Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese on Friday said the Indonesia government’s decision to further reduce the prison sentence of the bomb maker involved in the 2002 Bali attack was upsetting.

Umar Patek, a member of the al-Qaeda-linked militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2012 after he was found guilty of making bombs used to kill 202 people at two Bali nightclubs.

The Indonesian government had reduced Patek’s prison sentence by five months as a part of remissions routinely given to inmates on the country’s Independence Day on 17 August.

Patek has also been convicted for his role in the 2000 church bombings in Jakarta that killed 19 people.

“This will cause further distress to Australians who were the families of victims of the Bali bombings,” Mr Albanese told Channel 9.

“We lost 88 Australian lives in those bombings.”

The Australian leader said he would continue making “diplomatic representations” to Indonesia about Patek’s sentence.

Describing Patek as “abhorrent”, Mr Albanese added that “his actions were the actions of a terrorist”.

“They did have such dreadful results for Australian families that are ongoing, the trauma which is there.”

“They [Indonesian government] have a system whereby when anniversaries occur, quite often sentences are reduced and commuted for people.

“But when it comes to someone who's committed such a heinous crime, a designer and maker of a bomb designed to kill people, to kill and maim, then we have a very strong view.”

With a total of two years of a reduced sentence, Patek could be released on parole ahead of the 20th anniversary of the bombings in October.

Zaeroji, the head of the provincial office for the ministry of law and human rights, said the convict was eligible for parole this month given he had already served two-thirds of his sentence after a series of such reductions.

“While in the prison, he behaved very well and he regrets his radical past which has harmed society and the country and he has also vowed to be a good citizen,” said Zaeroji, who goes by one name.

In 2011, Patek was arrested in Pakistan and tried in Indonesia, where he was convicted in 2012.