JAKARTA, Indonesia — On Tuesday, Indonesian officials accompanied a sick French citizen, long held on death row in the Southeast Asian nation, to Jakarta’s airport, marking the beginning of his journey back to France under a bilateral agreement.
Serge Atlaoui has spent nearly two decades imprisoned in Indonesia due to drug-related crimes. In 2015, he received a last-minute stay of execution from a firing squad after the French government intensified its efforts, citing that Atlaoui still had an unresolved court appeal.
While Indonesia executed eight other inmates in May 2015, Atlaoui’s execution was suspended. However, an Administrative Court in Jakarta rejected his final court appeal the following month. The 61-year-old father of four, who has been diagnosed with cancer, made a heartfelt request to the Indonesian government in December, seeking to serve the remainder of his sentence in France.
The French government responded positively to his request, leading to a transfer agreement signed by Indonesia’s senior law minister, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, and French Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, on January 24. This paved the way for Atlaoui’s departure on Tuesday.
Atlaoui was apprehended in 2005, accused of being involved in a factory on the outskirts of Jakarta that produced the illegal drug MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy. His legal representatives assert that he was working as a welder at the facility, unaware of the nature of the chemicals being handled.
Originally from Metz, France, Atlaoui has consistently denied any wrongdoing throughout his 19 years of incarceration, alleging that he was merely installing equipment in what he believed to be an acrylics manufacturing plant. Law enforcement labeled him a “chemist” at the site. Initially sentenced to life in prison, his sentence was escalated to death by the Supreme Court following an appeal in 2007.
On Tuesday afternoon, Atlaoui was transported from Salemba Prison to the airport, where he was expected to board a scheduled flight to Paris. His arrival in France is set for Wednesday morning.
He did not make any statements when approached by a throng of reporters outside the prison.
Currently, around 530 individuals are on death row in Indonesia, primarily for drug-related crimes, including nearly 100 foreigners, according to data from the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections. The last executions carried out by Indonesia took place in July 2016, involving one Indonesian and three foreign nationals.
In a related development, in December, the Indonesian government repatriated Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina woman who had nearly faced execution in 2015, following prolonged appeals from her home nation. Additionally, five Australians, who spent nearly 20 years in Indonesian facilities for heroin trafficking, returned to Australia under an agreement between the two countries in the same month.
In light of these recent repatriations, Indonesian authorities are contemplating new legislative measures on prisoner amnesty and transfers, aiming to ease the severe overcrowding in the nation’s correctional facilities.
