Hold on for nineteen years in Jakarta, Indonesia, Serge Atlaoui is back in France. A “miracle” for his wife, Sabine, who waited for him during all these years.
This Wednesday, January 5, Serge Atlaoui, sentenced to death for drug trafficking, made his comeback in France. The detainee finally left Jakarta prison, after nineteen years imprisoned in Indonesia. In 2005, the authorities accused him of being a narcotraficious “chemist”, after having surprised him in a factory where tens of kilos of drugs were stored. The welder craftsman 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.
For his relatives, this return signs the end of nineteen years of waiting. The father of four was first taken to the Bobigny court at the start of the morning, before his placement in detention pending a “adaptation of the sentence”, specifies his lawyer Richard Sédillot. “Today he comes back alive from the death corridor, yes, it is a victory for life over death,” rejoiced his wife, Sabine Atlaoui, in an interview with TF1.
First sentenced to life imprisonment, the Mosellan saw his sentence increased by decision of the Supreme Court in 2007: on appeal, the court decided to condemn him to the death penalty. In 2015, its execution was finally suspended after Paris intensified the pressure. The unexpected return of the French inmate for “humanitarian reasons” is the result of a sealed agreement at the end of January between France and Indonesia.
Reunion outside the bars
These administrative journeys have also cost Sabine, who has not seen her husband since 2019. “All these years of incarceration, in fact, that’s this moment that I was waiting for. Leaving prison, that means that there, he is really on the way back, “said the mother on RTL. “We are filled with joy and happiness. But I am already in the next step because I want to see him and I would like to see him live his freedom,” she adds.
But before his release, Serge Atlaoui will stay in a French penitentiary establishment. And as long as he is not out of the bars, he refuses to see his entourage. “We will not be there because Serge did not want it. He wishes to see us when he is as a free man,” explains Sabine.
“This return is a miracle. He survived 19 years of incarceration and an execution,” she recalls. I thought I was going to be a little more serene, but I am turned upside down. There is Lots of joy, in fact. Hanged reunion and probably rich in emotion for the separate couple for so long: “I don’t know how I’m going to be. That’s why I would like it to be in intimacy, because I think that I’m going to cry this time.