JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia was set to repatriate a Frenchman on Tuesday who has spent two decades on death row for drug offences, a senior minister said, joining a list of long-term prisoners sent home by Jakarta in recent months.
Serge Atlaoui, sentenced to death for being a chemist in an ecstasy factory, will depart from Jakarta with French authorities who have been in the capital since Saturday, law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra said.
“As agreed with the French government, the transfer will occur on February 4,” he said by text message on Tuesday.
Indonesia agreed to repatriate Atlaoui on “humanitarian” grounds because he was suffering from cancer, Yusril said when the two countries formally agreed on his repatriation last month.
The factory in the capital Jakarta was said to be capable of producing 100 kg (220.46 lb) of illegal ecstasy pills every week.
Atlaoui, jailed in Indonesia since 2005, has long maintained his innocence, saying he thought he was working in an acrylics factory.
In 2015, Atlaoui was about to be executed with seven other foreign prisoners but was granted a last-minute reprieve. An Indonesian court then rejected his appeal against the death sentence, leaving him with no other legal options.
France would decide on Atlaoui’s legal status once he returns, with the maximum punishment for a similar case under French law being 30 years in jail, Yusril said.
Atlaoui’s repatriation follows the December transfer of Mary Jane Veloso, a Philippine mother of two and a former domestic helper who was sentenced to death in 2010 in Indonesia for drug trafficking.
In December, Indonesia also repatriated the five remaining members of the “Bali Nine” Australian drug ring to serve their sentences in their home country.
(Reporting by Ananda Teresia and Stanley Widianto; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
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