France has officially requested Indonesia to repatriate Serge Atlaoui, a Frenchman sentenced to death in Indonesia in 2007 for drug trafficking, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, Indonesian minister in charge of legal affairs and rights, told AFP on Friday. humans.
“The French Embassy delivered a letter from the French Minister of Justice to the Indonesian Minister of Justice, dated November 4, containing a request for the transfer of the French prisoner named Serge Atlaoui,” said Yusril Ihza Mahendra.
Contacted by AFP, the French embassy in Indonesia did not react immediately.
Serge Atlaoui, aged 60, was arrested in 2005 at a factory where drugs were discovered outside Jakarta, with authorities accusing him of being a “chemist”. The artisan welder from Metz (east) and father of four children, has always denied being a drug trafficker, claiming that he had only installed industrial machines in what he believed to be an acrylic factory.
Originally sentenced to life in prison
The affair caused a stir in Indonesia where anti-drug laws are one of the strictest in the world. Initially sentenced to life in prison, he saw the Supreme Court increase the sentence, sentencing him to the death penalty on appeal.
He was due to be executed alongside eight other convicts in 2015, but was granted a temporary reprieve after Paris stepped up pressure, with Indonesian authorities agreeing to let a pending appeal take its course.
Indonesia is currently in discussions with three countries, namely the Philippines, Australia and France, for the repatriation of several prisoners, Yusril Ihza Mahendra said on Thursday, adding that he hoped these transfers could be done by “the end of December”. Among the prisoners is Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina sentenced to death after being arrested in Indonesia in 2010 with a suitcase filled with 2.6 kg of heroin.
The last executions in Indonesia date back to 2016: an Indonesian and three Nigerians convicted of drug trafficking were shot by a firing squad.
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