Indonesia prepares to execute Frenchman

Desperate diplomatic calls from France and the EU urging Indonesia to spare the life of a Frenchman on death row appear have fallen on deaf ears with the convicted drug trafficker set to be executed in the coming days.

Published: 24 April 2015 09:52 CEST

French drug convict and death row prisoner Serge Atlaoui (C) is escorted by police upon his arrival at Tangerang court outside Jakarta on April 1, 2015. Photo: AFP

Indonesia is going ahead with the final preparations to execute nine foreign drug convicts despite outrage from both France and the European Union.

Ten convicts — from Australia, France, Brazil, the Philippines, Nigeria, Ghana and Indonesia — will face the firing squad after losing appeals for presidential clemency.

Indonesia has advised consular officials to go to Nusakambangan, the high-security prison island where its executions are carried out, and where all of the death row convicts have now been transported to.

The government said an exact date for the executions could not be decided yet, as a judicial review was still pending for the sole Indonesian in the group of 10 people who face death by firing squad.

"We hope that the decision will be made as soon as possible so that we will have a chance to determine the D-Day of the executions," Tony Spontana, spokesman for Indonesia's attorney-general, told reporters.

The preparations come despite increasingly desperate calls from French and EU leaders for Indonesia not to go ahead with the executions

The EU on Thursday attacked the death sentence imposed on a Frenchman in Indonesia saying it was no answer to drug trafficking.

"The European Union is completely opposed to the death penalty. It cannot be the answer to drug trafficking," EU president Donald Tusk said, adding that he was referring to Serge Atlaoui who lost his final appeal against his death sentence earlier this week.

There have also been especially sharp exchanges between France and Indonesia in recent days over Atlaoui's fate, with Paris saying his trial had not been properly conducted.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius accused Indonesia of "serious dysfunction" in its legal system that led to Frenchman Serge Atlaoui being sentenced to death, and said his execution would be "incomprehensible".

President Francois Hollande said he "would do everything possible up to the last moment" to prevent Atlaoui's execution.

"Abolishing the death penalty is for us an absolute principle. For Serge Atlaoui, death cannot be the ultimate sanction," said Hollande after attending an emergency EU summit on migrants in Brussels.

Atlaoui was arrested near Jakarta in 2005 in a secret laboratory producing ecstasy and was sentenced to death two years later.

EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini issued a statement earlier Thursday saying the 28-nation bloc was ready to work with Indonesia on drug trafficking.

"The recent rejections in Indonesia of retrials, including in the case of a French citizen, bring closer the regrettable prospect of further executions," Mogherini said.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.