Serge Atlaoui, sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking since 2007, is soon back in France. A relief for the detainee, separated from his relatives for 19 years.
Serge Atlaoui waited nineteen years in an Indonesia prison before being able to return to France. The French national had been arrested in 2005 in a factory in the suburbs of Jakarta where drugs had been discovered. He was therefore imprisoned by the authorities who suspected him of being an “chemist” involved in a drug market. The artisan welder from Metz has however always defended himself to be a drug trafficker, saying that he had only established industrial machines in what he thought was an acrylic factory. Since 2005, France has been negotiating the return of Serge Atlaoui with Indonesia. An agreement was finally concluded this January 24, 2025.
This Tuesday, midday, the Indonesian prison services said that he had been extracted from his cell from Salemba prison in the Indonesian capital, before embarking on a convoy direction Suekarno-Hatta airport . After the management of the French police forces, he had to take off in the evening for Paris and arrive on Wednesday morning. “He is extremely relieved,” said his lawyer Richard Sédillot, in regular contact with him, with the daily LIs republican.
The arrest of Serge Atlaoui had aroused a keen excitement in Indonesia, where anti -Drogue legislation is one of the most severe in the world, but also in France. Especially since Indonesian justice has pronounced the heaviest penalties against French. First sentenced to life imprisonment, he saw his sentence to fall into the decision of the Supreme Court in 2007: on appeal, the court decided to condemn him to the death penalty.
Fortunately, the father of four obtained a stay after Paris intensified the pressure, the Indonesian authorities having agreed to let a appeal in suspense follow his course. But without the intervention of France, Serge Atlaoui was to be executed alongside eight others convicted in 2015.
Expected reunion
This agreement stems from an official request from France demanding the “immediate return” of Serge Atlaoui because of “the deterioration of (his) state of health”, whose gravity remains unknown according to Here (formerly France Bleu). The request obtained a favorable outcome, even if the fate of the sixties when it arrived on French soil must be specified as part of the agreement. Is a new incarceration in France possible?
His lawyer, requested by France Inter, indicates that he will “obviously” ask for an immediate release. “He lived atrociously difficult years, far from all those he loves, locked up, he has always kept a dignity and a calm that is always impressive,” said Richard Sédillot.
Before finding his family, the Lorraine will first be “led to Bobigny and presented to the prosecution and then placed in detention,” his lawyer told AFP. “We will intervene before the competent court which will rule on the adaptation of the sentence and we will ask that an adaptation allows its release,” he added.
Despite the judicial adventures that await him, Serge Atlaoui is not lacking in optimism: “I escaped the execution platoon, I survived two cancers, I can wait a few more days,” He tells those around him, contacted by RTL. First words that demonstrate a comabative state of mind. “I am amazed by the courage of this man who is incredible, said in 2015, in 2015, Richard Sédillot about his client. And when he plans the worst, he only thinks of his loved ones, he never speaks of him.
This is why the sixty -something person prefer to wait for the end of the procedures to find his family in the best conditions. “I am the eldest of eleven brothers and sisters, there are many people who have been waiting for my return for 19 years! But I will see them when I am free, not in a French court or prison,” he declared during this call with his relatives.