After Philippines and Australia, France asks Indonesia to return 60-year-old welder sentenced to death for 2005 drug crimes

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - French drug convict and death row prisoner Serge Atlaoui (left) is escorted by Indonesian police upon his arrival at Tangerang court, outside Jakarta on April 1, 2015. — AFP file pic

JAKARTA, Dec 1 — France has asked Indonesia to transfer a French death row convict, who has been jailed for drug crimes in the Asian nation since 2005, a senior Indonesian minister told AFP on Friday.

Indonesia is in discussion with three countries, including France, over the return of several high-profile detainees and aims to transfer the prisoners by the end of December.

“The French embassy has delivered a letter from France’s justice minister to Indonesia’s law minister dated November 4 containing a request for the transfer of a French prisoner named Serge Atlaoui,” senior law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra told AFP in a message.

The French embassy did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

A French diplomat in Paris acknowledged that talks with Jakarta about Atlaoui were underway.

“French authorities are monitoring the situation of Mr Serge Atlaoui. We are in contact with the Indonesian authorities on this matter,” the diplomat told AFP.

Atlaoui, a welder, was arrested in 2005 in a secret drugs factory outside Jakarta, with authorities accusing him of being a “chemist” at the site.

But the 60-year-old father of four has maintained his innocence, claiming that he was installing machinery in what he thought was an acrylics plant.

He was initially sentenced to life in prison, but the Supreme Court in 2007 increased the sentence to death on appeal.

Atlaoui was held on the island of Nusakambangan in Central Java, known as Indonesia’s “Alcatraz”, following the death sentence, but he was transferred to the city of Tangerang, west of Jakarta, in 2015 ahead of his appeal.

That year, he was due to be executed alongside eight other drug offenders but won a temporary reprieve after Paris stepped up pressure, with Indonesian authorities agreeing to let an outstanding appeal run its course.

‘Considerable hope’

In the appeal, Atlaoui’s lawyers argued that then-president Joko Widodo did not properly consider his case as he rejected Atlaoui’s plea for clemency typically a death row convict’s last chance to avoid the firing squad.

The court, however, upheld its previous decision that it did not have the jurisdiction to hear a challenge over the clemency plea.

Atlaoui is currently being held in a penitentiary in Jakarta, Yusril said.

His lawyer Serge Sedillot said there is “considerable hope” that Atlaoui’s sentence would be commuted and his transfer ordered.

“We hope that the Indonesian authorities will accede to the French request, given that Serge has been detained for almost 20 years and that his behaviour in detention has always been beyond reproach,” added Sedillot, who is also spokesperson for the non-governmental organisation Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM).

Other high-profile detainees that are in discussion to be transferred include Mary Jane Veloso, a Philippine woman who was granted a stay of execution in 2015, and the five remaining members of Australia’s “Bali Nine”, all convicted on drug charges.

Two from the group were executed by firing squad, one died of cancer and another was released in 2018.

Muslim-majority Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws and has executed foreigners in the past.

There are 530 prisoners on death row in Indonesia, among them 88 foreigners, according to the rights group KontraS, citing official figures. — AFP