JAKARTA: A Frenchman on death string in Indonesia since 2007 for drug crimes will be sent back to his home region, an Indonesian secretary said Friday.
In subsequent weeks, Indonesia has released a few well-known prisoners, including a Filipina mother who is currently serving time for murder and the final five members of the so-called” Bali Nine” medicine ring.
In a video call with European fairness minister Gerald Darmanin, top law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra and top law enforcement official Yusril Ihza Mahendra agreed to transfer Serge Atlaoui, 61, from a drug shop close to Jakarta.
At a press conference with French ambassadeur to Indonesia, Fabien Penone, Yusril stated,” I think this process has been quite lengthy… but the bargaining has been fairly quick”.
The deal comes to an end to decades of negotiations for the Frenchman’s move, Yusril told AFP on Friday. He said he would probably be repatriated on February 4.
The bets of his transfer are higher because Atlaoui is now receiving regular medical care in a Jakarta prison and is currently battling an illness there.
According to Atlaoui’s French attorney Richard Sedillot,” It is naturally a great relief to finally understand of the agreement between France and Indonesia regarding the transfer of Serge.”
” These last few weeks have been difficult, since the realization of the deal has been postponed many days”, he said.
Atlaoui’s death upon his return to France remains vague.
Managed sincerity
The father of four consistently maintained ignorance, insisting that he was constructing machinery in an acrylic factory.
He was immediately given a life sentence, but the supreme court changed that to a death sentence in 2007.
The deal was welcomed by activists who supported the end of the death penalty.
” We are delighted with this move selection… and to know that Serge Atlaoui you then return to France after everything he has experienced”, Raphael Chenuil-Hazan, executive director of NGO Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM).
He claimed that Atlaoui “has mainly served his sentence and far beyond that” and demanded clemency from the French authorities.
Atlaoui was held on the island of Nusakambangan in Central Java, known as Indonesia’s” Alcatraz”, following the death word, but he was eventually transferred to the city of Tangerang, north of Jakarta.
He was scheduled to be executed in 2015 along with eight different pharmaceutical criminals, but after Paris increased the pressure, with Indonesian specialists allowing an unfinished appeal to proceed.
Indonesia has executed immigrants in the past and has some of the toughest medicine laws in the world.
At least 530 people are on death row in the Southeast Asian nation, according to statistics from right group KontraS, mainly for drug-related acts.
Indonesia’s multiculturalism and corrections department said more than 90 foreigners were on suicide row, all on medication costs, as of early November.
After serving nearly 15 years on Indonesia’s dying column, Filipina criminal Mary Jane Veloso experienced tearful reunification with her family next month.
The Indonesian authorities recently announced that it would resume executions after a two-year hiatus.
