JAKARTA: France has despatched Indonesia an official request for the switch of a French loss of life row inmate who has spent almost 20 years in jail, an Indonesian minister advised AFP on Saturday (Dec 28).
Indonesia has in latest weeks launched half a dozen high-profile detainees, together with a Filipina mum on death row and the last five members of the so-called “Bali 9” drug ring.
French diplomats have acknowledged that talks had been underway for the switch of Serge Atlaoui, a 61-year-old Frenchman arrested in 2005 at a medication manufacturing facility exterior the capital Jakarta.
The Indonesian authorities has now confirmed it acquired the official switch request, which will probably be mentioned in early January.
“We have now acquired a proper letter requesting the switch of Serge Atlaoui,” senior regulation and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra advised AFP.
The French embassy in Jakarta declined AFP’s request for remark.
Atlaoui’s lawyer, Richard Sedillot, mentioned that France’s intervention introduced “immense hope”.
“It will be the fruits of a protracted battle that has usually been discreet, however which has all the time been carried out all through these years,” he advised AFP.
“It has been tireless work and we’re proud of an end result which could possibly be beneficial,” added Sedillot.
“A LONG FIGHT”
Father-of-four Atlaoui has maintained his innocence, claiming that he was putting in equipment in what he thought was an acrylics plant.
He was initially sentenced to life in jail, however the Supreme Court docket in 2007 elevated the sentence to loss of life on attraction.
Atlaoui was held on the island of Nusakambangan in Central Java, referred to as Indonesia’s “Alcatraz”, following the loss of life sentence, however he was transferred to the town of Tangerang, west of Jakarta, in 2015 forward of his attraction.
That 12 months, he was on account of be executed alongside eight different drug offenders however received a short lived reprieve after Paris stepped up strain, with Indonesian authorities agreeing to let an impressive attraction run its course.
Within the attraction, Atlaoui’s legal professionals argued that then-president Joko Widodo didn’t correctly contemplate his case as he rejected Atlaoui’s plea for clemency – usually a loss of life row convict’s final likelihood to keep away from the firing squad.
The courtroom, nevertheless, upheld its earlier determination that it didn’t have the jurisdiction to listen to a problem over the clemency plea.
Collectively Towards the Dying Penalty (ECPM) mentioned the official request is the “penultimate step in a protracted combat” for these on the Paris-based organisation who’ve campaigned for years to stop Atlaoui’s execution.
“We at the moment are ready for this switch to grow to be a actuality,” ECPM director Raphael Chenuil-Hazan advised AFP.
Earlier this month, Filipina inmate Mary Jane Veloso tearfully reunited along with her household after almost 15 years on Indonesia’s loss of life row. She was transferred to a ladies’s jail in Manila the place she awaits a hoped-for pardon for her medicine conviction.
Indonesia has a number of the world’s hardest drug legal guidelines and has executed foreigners up to now.
A minimum of 530 individuals had been on loss of life row within the Southeast Asian nation, largely for drug-related crimes, based on knowledge from rights group KontraS, citing official figures.
In line with Indonesia’s Immigration and Corrections Ministry, greater than 90 foreigners had been on loss of life row, all on drug costs, as of early November.
Regardless of ongoing negotiations for prisoner transfers, the Indonesian authorities just lately signalled that it’s going to resume executions – on hiatus since 2016 – of drug convicts on loss of life row.