Serge Atlaoui: French man on death row in Indonesia to return home

A French national held on death row in Indonesia since 2007 for drug offences is returning to France on Tuesday as part of an agreement made between both countries.

Serge Atlaoui, 61, was accused of being a “chemist” by Indonesian authorities and arrested in 2005 at a factory in Jakarta, where dozens of kilos (pounds) of drugs were found.

An agreement was made between Indonesia and France on 24 January to extradite the father-of-four on “humanitarian grounds” because he has cancer and has been receiving weekly treatment at a hospital.

“It’s a miracle,” his wife Sabine Atlaoui told France’s RTL radio. “He survived 19 years of incarceration. He survived an execution.”

The 61-year-old was handed over to French police at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta and took off on a commercial flight to Paris at 19:35 local time (12:35 GMT), an official told the AFP news agency.

When he lands on Wednesday morning, Atlaoui will be presented to prosecutors “and most likely detained while awaiting a decision” about his future sentencing, his lawyer Richard Sedillot told AFP.

In France, the maximum punishment for a similar crime is 30 years, Indonesia human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra told Reuters.

It will be up to Paris to grant “clemency, amnesty or a reduced sentence”, he said.

Mr Sedillot told AFP he was “delighted” with the extradition and “will now work to ensure that the sentence is adapted to conditions which will allow his release.”

Atlaoui told his family he does not want to meet them at the airport, his wife said.

“He wants to see his family again when he is free,” she told RTL. “Unfortunately, we do not know how long it will take.”

Atlaoui, a welder from Metz in north-eastern France, has always denied being a drug trafficker.

He claimed to be installing machinery in an acrylic factory, but told AFP in 2015 he “thought there was something suspicious”.

Originally sentenced to life in prison, the verdict was changed to death on appeal by the Indonesian supreme court.

His execution was scheduled for 2015, but paused thanks to pressure from the French government.