France and Indonesia must sign an agreement on Friday January 24, 2025 on the transfer to Paris of Serge Atlaoui, a Frenchman sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking. Originally from Metz in Moselle, he has been in prison since 2005.
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Serge Atlaoui, originally from Metz in Moselle, aged 61, is due to be transferred to France on February 4. “He is obviously relieved, he is very, very happy. You can imagine, he will perhaps finally be able to return to his country”said Richard Sédillot, his lawyer, reached by telephone by France 3 Lorraine. “But I can’t talk about his state of health. He will talk about it when he returns.”
-Serge Atlaoui was arrested twenty years ago in the suburbs of Jakarta, in a factory where drugs had been discovered. The authorities had accused him of being a “chemist”. “The agreement must be signed on Friday January 24, 2025 in the early afternoon in Jakarta by Mr. Yusril and by Gérald Darmanin, French Minister of Justice, remotely from Paris, by videoconference”a source close to the negotiations told AFP.
A welder, father of four children, he has always denied being a drug trafficker, claiming “that he had only installed industrial machinery in what he believed to be an acrylic factory.”
Sentenced to life in prison, he saw the Supreme Court increase the sentence and sentence him to the death penalty on appeal. He was due to be executed in 2015, but was granted a reprieve after Paris stepped up pressure. Indonesian authorities having agreed to let a pending appeal take its course.
Sick and transferred to Salemba prison in Jakarta, he underwent treatment every week in a hospital in the capital.
According to the NGO Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), in addition to Serge Atlaoui, at least four French people are currently sentenced to death around the world: two men in Morocco, one in China and a woman in Algeria.
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