An open letter requests the grace of prisoner Serge Atlaoui, former death sentence in Indonesia – Liberation
Christiane Taubira and Jacques Toubon. The duo of former justice ministers is one of the signatories of an open letter published this Wednesday, May 28 In the Parisianat the initiative of the association together against the death penalty (ECPM), to demand The release of Serge Atlaoui. This 61 -year -old man was arrested in 2005 in Indonesia in a factory where tens of kilos of drugs had been discovered and the authorities accused him of being a « chemist ». Coming from Metz, this father of four, has always defended himself from being a drug trafficker, saying that he had only established industrial machines in what he thought was an acrylic factory.
Initially sentenced to life prison, he had seen the Indonesian Supreme Court weighs down the sentence and condemn it to capital punishment on appeal. It was to be executed alongside eight others convicted in 2015, but obtained a reprieve after France intensified pressure by diplomatic tracks. Officially requested on November 4 by France, his return was made possible by the signing of an agreement on January 24 between the French Ministers of Justice Gérald Darmanin and Indonesian Yusril Ihza Mahendra. In this agreement, Jakarta explains that he decided to « Do not execute » the prisoner and authorized his return to « Humanitarian reasons » because « He’s sick ».
Back on French territory since February 5he is now detained in Orsay prison, in Val-d’Oise, to serve the rest of the thirty years of criminal imprisonment to which he was sentenced to France, after his transfer from Indonesia. Since then, his lawyer has been trying to obtain a presidential grace that has so far been unanswered. This Wednesday, May 28, Emmanuel Macron is precisely on an official visit to Indonesia, where he negotiates, among other things, sales contracts, and diplomatic initiatives, as on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
« The bilateral agreement which allowed its transfer, however, explicitly provides for the possibility of a grace », also argue the authors of the gallery. « »A grace that you have the power to pronounce, Mr. President, to repair this injustice: taking into account the duration of the sentence he has carried out, the circumstances surrounding his conviction, his state of health, his family situation, and his impeccable behavior for twenty years. «
