The Supreme Court has ordered Bali's Denpasar district court, which issued the original death sentences against the bombers, to appoint panels of judges to review their individual cases, court head I Nyoman Gede Wirya said on Tuesday.

Amrozi, Ali Ghufron and Imam Samudra played key roles in the 2002 bombings on the mainly Hindu resort island, which left 202 people dead, mostly foreign holiday makers.

The panels 'will open hearings to review the procedures that led to the Supreme Court's ruling to reject the convicts' demand for case reviews, and the legality of that ruling', he said.

He said the Supreme Court had ordered the lower court to hold the hearings and the final decision on whether procedures were flawed was up to that body.

If the Supreme Court accepted it made errors, it would open the door to a second case review.

'If we look at the penal code, there is no such thing as a second demand for a case review, but this time we are acting on the instructions of the Supreme Court,' Mr Wirya said.

Mr Wirya estimated that the hearings would open in about two weeks.

Lawyers for the three death row convicts have long insisted that the procedures taken by the Supreme Court to reject their demand for a case review were flawed since an open hearing was not held.

The attorney general's office warned in January that the convicts had just 30 days to appeal for presidential clemency or else face imminent execution.

The deadline passed without any request being lodged.

The 2002 bombings were blamed on the militant Jemaah Islamiah (JI) network. The group has been accused of staging repeated attacks in Indonesia and other South-east Asian countries, though the Bali atrocities were the most deadly. -- AFP