Indonesia repatriates ailing death row inmate to France

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - Indonesia on Tuesday repatriated an ailing French national who has been on death row for a drug conviction in the Southeast Asian country to France following an agreement between the two countries.

The Indonesian government last week agreed to transfer Serge Areski Atlaoui back to his home country on compassionate grounds, according to local English daily Jakarta Globe.

He was taken from Salemba Prison in Jakarta to the airport to board a commercial flight to Paris.

Atlaoui, who made no comment to reporters outside the prison, spent almost 20 years in jail.

He won a last-minute reprieve from execution by a firing squad in 2015, following pressure from the French government as he still had an outstanding court appeal.

Eight other convicts were executed 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, now 61, who is reportedly fighting cancer, made a last-ditch appeal in December to the Indonesian government requesting to serve the rest of his sentence in France.

He was initially sentenced to a life sentence in June 2005 for his role as a "chemical expert" in a clandestine drug manufacturing operation near the capital Jakarta. However, in 2007, his appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court, which also upgraded his sentence to the death penalty.

Atlaoui would serve the rest of his sentence in France under French law.