JAKARTA — Indonesian prosecutors Monday asked for a life sentence rather than the death penalty for Bali bombmaker Umar Patek, arguing that his remorse in the dock should spare him from a firing squad.

Patek, 45, is accused of masterminding attacks on two nightclubs on the resort island in Oct. 2002 which killed 202 people. When the trial started in February, prosecutors had said they would seek capital punishment for Patek, who was held last year in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, four months before Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden was killed there. — AFP