Indonesia sends home an ailing French national on death row

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian authorities on Tuesday escorted an ailing French national who has been on death row in the Southeast Asian country to the airport in Jakarta as his return to France got underway following an agreement between the two nations.

Serge Atlaoui, who has spent almost 20 years in an Indonesian prison for drug offenses, won a last-minute reprieve from execution by a 13-member firing squad in 2015, after France's government stepped up pressure because Atlaoui still had an outstanding court appeal.

In May 2015, but Atlaoui was granted a stay of execution. An Administrative Court in Jakarta denied his last court appeal the following month.

The father of four, who is now 61 and reportedly has cancer, in December by writing to the Indonesian government requesting to serve the rest of his sentence in France.

Paris responded and was signed remotely by Indonesia’s senior minister of law Yusril Ihza Mahendra and France’s Minister of Justice Gérald Darmanin on Jan. 24, allowing for Atlaoui to return home on Tuesday.

Atlaoui was arrested in 2005 for his alleged involvement in a factory manufacturing the psychedelic drug MDMA, sometimes called ecstasy, on the outskirts of Jakarta. His lawyers say he was employed as a welder at the factory and did not understand what the chemicals on the premises were used for.

Atlaoui, from the town of Metz in France, has maintained his innocence during his 19 years behind bars, claiming he was installing machinery in what he thought was an acrylics plant. Police accused him of being a "chemist" at the site. He was initially sentenced to life, but the Supreme Court in 2007 increased the sentence to death on appeal.

Atlaoui was taken from Salemba Prison in Jakarta on Tuesday afternoon and taken in a car to the airport, where he is to board a commercial flight to Paris later in the day. His arrival in France is expected on Wednesday morning.

He made no comment to a crush of reporters outside the prison.

Once he's back in France, Atlaoui would serve the rest of his sentence under French law, said I Nyoman Gede Surya Mataram, an immigrations and corrections official. “The Indonesian government will continue to encourage and strengthen the spirit of fighting against drugs in our country,” he added.

Atlaoui, in jeans and a white shirt, donning a baseball cap and facemask, was brought before reporters at the airport, though he did not speak.

French Ambassador Fabien Penone thanked Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and his government for the transfer. When asked what would happen to Atlaoui once back in France, Penone said French authorities would reexamine his case.

About 530 people are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes, including nearly 100 foreigners, according to the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections data. Indonesia's last , were carried out in July 2016.

Indonesia’s government in December , a Filipina who had been on death row and who was nearly executed by firing squad in 2015, after longstanding requests from her home country.

Five Australians who spent almost 20 years in Indonesian prisons for heroin trafficking also in the same month under a deal struck between the governments.

Following the recent repatriation of foreign convicts, Jakarta is considering legislating new rules on prisoner amnesty and transfers as part of a wider aim to ease congestion in the country’s overcrowded prisons.