Frenchman on death row in Indonesia leaves jail ahead of transfer home

A Frenchman on death row in Indonesia since 2007 for drug offences left prison on Tuesday ahead of his transfer to France, with his lawyer saying he was “happy and calm” ahead of returning home.

Serge Atlaoui, 61, was driven in a black van from Salemba prison in Jakarta to the city’s main airport to be handed over to French police officers before boarding a commercial flight to Paris.

He remained tight-lipped and wore a face mask at a pre-flight news conference, but French ambassador Fabien Penone thanked Indonesian authorities for allowing the transfer.

Indonesia, which has some of the world’s toughest drug laws, has released half-a-dozen high-profile detainees in recent weeks, including a Filipina mother on death row and the last five members of the “Bali Nine” drug ring.

“Serge is happy and calm,” lawyer Richard Sedillot told AFP earlier. “But he is going to need a little bit of time to reorganise himself.”

Jakarta has left it to the French government to grant Atlaoui — the only Frenchman on death row in Indonesia — either clemency, amnesty or a reduced sentence.

His return was made possible after an agreement between French Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin and his Indonesian counterpart Yusril Ihza Mahendra on January 24.

In the agreement, Jakarta said they had decided not to execute Atlaoui and authorised his return on “humanitarian grounds” because he was ill.

Atlaoui had been receiving weekly medical treatment at a hospital.

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“After all these years of incarceration, this is the moment I was waiting for,” his wife Sabine told RTL radio.

– Death penalty appeal –

Atlaoui was arrested in 2005 at a factory in a Jakarta suburb where dozens of kilograms of drugs were discovered and was accused by authorities of being a “chemist”.

A welder from Metz in northeastern France, the father of four has always denied being a drug trafficker, saying that he was installing machinery in what he thought was an acrylic factory.

“I thought there was something suspicious (about the factory),” Atlaoui told AFP in 2015.

Initially sentenced to life in prison, his sentence was reviewed by the supreme court and changed to death on appeal.

He was due to be executed alongside eight others in 2015 but was granted a reprieve after Paris applied pressure and the Indonesian authorities allowed an outstanding appeal to proceed.

There are currently at least 530 inmates on death row in Indonesia, according to official figures used by human rights organisation Kontas.

Among them are 90 foreigners, including at least one woman, according to the Ministry of Immigration and Correction.

The Indonesian government recently signalled it will resume executions, which have not been used since 2016.

Filipina inmate Mary Jane Veloso, who was arrested in 2010 and sentenced to death for drug trafficking, was returned to her home country in December after an agreement was reached between both countries.