Monday, August 21 2006 17:21 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Jakarta: Indonesia has delayed the scheduled execution of three militants convicted of carrying out the 2002 Bali bombings that killed over 200 people.

Their defence attorneys announced they would file a final appeal, a government spokesman said Monday. The accused men - Imam Samurda and brothers Amrozi Nurhasyim and Ali Gufron - were among more than 30 people convicted in the bombings, many of whom were believed to be members of Jemaah Islamiyah, considered to be a southeast Asian offshoot of Al Qaeda. Their defence team plans to file a final appeal, known as a judicial review, with the Indonesian Supreme Court, which prompted the Attorney General's Office to delay Tuesday's scheduled executions by the firing squad, said I. Wayan Pasek Suarta, spokesman for the office. Defence attorneys said they would demand that the convictions be thrown out because the anti-terrorism law used to prosecute the three men was applied retroactively. The Jakarta government had pushed through the legislation in the weeks after the bombings at two nightspots in Bali's Kuta Beach area. "We'll file an appeal on the basis that the Attorney General's Office has violated the constitution because they were being tried on a retroactive law," said defence attorney Mahendra Datta. In 2004, Indonesia's Constitutional Court ruled that the Attorney General's Office had illegally applied the law retroactively but surprisingly upheld the convictions. Suarta rejected defence claims that retrials should be held and said he was confident the final appeal would be thrown out. Nurhasyim, Gufron and Samurda confessed to carrying out the bombings, using a car bomb and a suicide bomber, and requested to be executed so they could be seen as martyrs. None of the men has expressed remorse for the killings.