"The Bali bombers who murdered my son last October...

"The Bali bombers who murdered my son last October are evil extremists, but they don't deserve the death penalty," Brian Deegan, the Adelaide magistrate farther of one of the victims of the Bali bombing, wrote in The Australian. "I have no problem with the idea that he and his accomplices should remain in prison for the rest of their lives. But the prospect of their judicial murder is something I want no part of. Death awakens all manner of emotions and murder excites even more. To varying degrees, revenge and purgation have formed part of the judicial process since the Garden of Eden. Similarly, in its many and flexible forms, capital punishment has been considered by some philosophers as not only a means of atonement but also a justifiable deterrent. As a measure employed to dissuade potential criminals, the death penalty has been an abject failure. This is borne out by statistics that point to the commensurate rise of murders and executions in countries where capital punishment is awarded. The argument in favour of executions remains difficult to reconcile with the universal revulsion generated by periods in history when society thought nothing of hanging a child or burning a witch. We read with disgust - or perhaps with guilt - of the stoning of adulterers, the removal of a thief's hand or the decapitation of a blasphemer. Yet we find it palatable to break a man's neck, to poison his veins or to electrocute him. The suggestion that Amrozi and his fellow evildoers should face an Indonesian firing squad is unconscionable because that would make the punishment as barbaric as the crime. What the Bali bombers did to my child and to the hundreds of others defies description. But the October 12, 2002, terrorist attacks do not give anyone the right to repeat such a vile act. If the purpose of killing a human being is to deter future killers, it's bound to fail as it has failed in the past. If the original crime was politically motivated, that only strengthens my argument. By analogy, if it were not so, one could never explain the deaths of countless young soldiers who for centuries have killed and died for political causes. The exposure of the frailties of mankind and modern science was sufficiently compelling for me to oppose capital punishment well before my son's death. To now adopt a different philosophy would be opportunistic and a betrayal of a code of behaviour I have instilled in my children. A recent visit to my son's gravesite confirmed my convictions. The execution of the Bali bombers by the state at the behest of "infidels" would give these criminals the undeserved status of martyrdom. That in turn may encourage other extremists to emulate October 12-style attacks, thus exposing my family and fellow citizens to further danger.