Australia dismayed over Bali bomb maker Umar Patek’s early release from prison

Patek, the bomb maker in the attack that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, got a 5-month sentence reduction – meaning he could be released on parole

Prime Minister Albanese said the decision will ‘cause further distress to Australians’ and he would make ‘diplomatic representations’ to Indonesia about it

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Umar Patek was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2012 for his role in the Bali terror attack. File photo: AP

Published: 1:05pm, 19 Aug 2022

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday that it’s upsetting Indonesia has further reduced the prison sentence of the bomb maker in the Bali terror attack that killed 202 people – meaning the terrorist could be freed within days if he’s granted parole.

Albanese said he’d been told by Indonesian authorities that Umar Patek’s sentence had been reduced by another five months, taking his total reductions to almost two years.

That means Patek could be released on parole ahead of the 20th anniversary of the bombings in October.

“This will cause further distress to Australians who were the families of victims of the Bali bombings,” Albanese told Channel 9. “We lost 88 Australian lives in those bombings.”

Albanese said he would continue making “diplomatic representations” to Indonesia about Patek’s sentence and a range of other issues, including Australians currently jailed in Indonesia. Albanese described Patek as “abhorrent.”

“His actions were the actions of a terrorist,” Albanese told Channel 9. “They did have such dreadful results for Australian families that are ongoing, the trauma which is there.”