A French man who has been on death row in Indonesia since 2007 for alleged drug offences is expected to return home in weeks after an Indonesian minister said an agreement would be signed on Friday to allow his transfer.
Serge Atlaoui is expected to return to France on 5 or 6 February, the senior minister for law and human rights affairs, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, told Reuters on Friday.
Indonesia has in recent weeks released half a dozen high-profile detainees, including a Filipina mum on death row and the last five members of the so-called Bali Nine drug ring.
Indonesian officials will hold a press conference with their French counterparts to announce the transfer agreement for Atlaoui, a 61-year-old welder arrested in 2005 at a drugs factory outside the capital Jakarta, on Friday, Mahendra said.
“We will sign the arrangement tomorrow at 3 pm. The minister of justice of France already confirmed today,” Mahendra told AFP late Thursday.
The ministry said in an invite to media that a press conference would be held after a “closed-door signing of the practical arrangement” for Atlaoui’s transfer.
The signing of the agreement, initially scheduled for Wednesday, was first postponed to Thursday for scheduling reasons and then again to Friday, according to a source close to the discussions.
“The agreement is due to be signed early Friday afternoon in Jakarta by Mr Yusril and Gérald Darmanin, the French justice minister, remotely from Paris, by videoconference,” the source said.
Atlaoui is suffering from an illness in a Jakarta prison and receives weekly treatment at a hospital, raising the stakes of his transfer.
Paris submitted an official request for his transfer last month, and Atlaoui’s fate upon his return to France could also be announced on Friday.
Father-of-four Atlaoui has denied drugs charges ever since his imprisonment, claiming that he was installing machinery in his capacity as a welder 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”, after 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 who were killed but won a temporary reprieve after Paris stepped up pressure, with Indonesian authorities agreeing to let an outstanding appeal run its course.
Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws and has executed foreigners in the past.
At least 530 people were on death row in the south-east Asian nation, mostly for drug-related crimes, according to data from rights group KontraS, citing official figures.
According to Indonesia’s immigration and corrections ministry, more than 90 foreigners were on death row, all on drug charges, as of early November.
Despite ongoing negotiations for Atlaoui’s transfer, the Indonesian government recently signalled that it will resume executions – on hiatus since 2016 – of drug convicts on death row.
