DENPASAR (Indonesia) May 12: The first suspect in the devastating terror bombings on the Indonesian resort island went on trial, here on Monday.

Prosecutors said Amrozi helped to stage the attack on Western holidaymakers last October 12 in revenge for the oppression of Muslims worldwide.

The bombing of two crowded Bali nightspots killed 202 people from 21 countries, including 88 Australians and 38 Indonesians.

Amrozi, a village mechanic, may face a firing squad if convicted.

Investigators have said the Jemaah Islamiyah network, which is thought linked to Al Qaeda, staged the blasts and a string of earlier explosions. It aims to establish a Southeast Asian Muslim state.

Amrozi, 40, the first suspect to be arrested, was dubbed the “laughing bomber” for a lighthearted appearance before the media last November.

Now he is “prepared for the worst. We told him that the maximum sentence is death,” his chief lawyer, Wirawan Adnan, told reporters.

Amrozi appeared tense and fidgety as prosecutors read a 33-page indictment.

It described in chilling detail how Amrozi and 12 others, including two of his brothers, allegedly staged the bombings as a way of “declaring war” against the United States and its allies.

The blasts “resulted in terror on a wide scale” and destroyed 424 buildings including the two nightspots — Paddy’s Bar and the Sari Club — in the Kuta district.

Police have said Amrozi’s motive was to kill as many Americans as possible. His only regret, they say, is that Australians and not Americans were the main victims.

Hundreds of police, some armed, guarded the courthouse and a total of 3,000 are on duty island-wide. Barbed-wire barricades sealed off the street amid fears of an angry public backlash but there were no clashes.

“Prosecute and sentence to death traitors to the state of Indonesia, including the Bali bombers,” read one billboard in the island, whose tourism-based economy was devastated.

“The trial is important for Indonesia and the world,” said Bali police chief I Made Mangku Pastika, who led the multinational investigation that has netted 33 suspects.

The bombings were a wake-up call for the world’s largest Muslim-populated nation, which had been criticised previously for failing to act against terror threats.

The indictment says Amrozi attended several planning sessions for the Bali bombing.

In September last year, it says, he bought one ton of potassium chloride and other chemicals used to build the van bomb which went off outside the Sari Club.

On October 5 Amrozi is said to have driven the van to Bali. At a house in Denpasar two days later, the bombs were assembled.

On the fatal night a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-stuffed vest inside Paddy’s Bar. That blast drove customers into the street, where they caught the full force of the van bomb outside the nearby Sari Club 29 seconds later.

A second bomber died when the van exploded.

Defence lawyer Adnan told the court the indictment “does not determine whether the defendant is a planner or an executor.”

Adnan said attending meetings as a spectator did not qualify Amrozi as a planner, nor did the purchase of chemicals and shipping them to Bali.

“The people of Bali and the people of Indonesia and the world community demand justice but we should not forget that the defendant also has the right to justice.”

The hearing was adjourned until May 19. Court officials said the trial, the first in a series, must be finished within 150 days.

“We are confident that (his crime) will be proven in court,” chief prosecutor Muhammad Salim told AFP.

Australian Peter Hughes, who is still bandaged from the blast, watched the hearing. He said he felt angry after the bombings.

“But I saw fear in his (Amrozi’s) eyes today and I felt somehow relieved. He realises what he is into.”—AFP