France requested on Saturday December 28 the repatriation of Serge Atlaoui, sentenced to death for drug trafficking in Indonesia since 2007. Like him, four other French people are under the death penalty around the world, and many others have been there. escaped in recent years.
If Serge Atlaoui is a case that makes a lot of noise, evidenced by the media coverage of his request for “transfer” to Indonesia by France On Saturday, several other French people face the death penalty around the world. Mr. Atlaoui, 61, convicted in 2007, who has lived on death row since then, is one of them. This artisan welder from Metz, father of four children, was arrested near Jakarta in 2005 while he was on site to install industrial machines in a factory which turned out to be an ecstasy production site.
“ The day I was arrested, I was supposed to leave, but the driver had already left. Bad luck! I cleaned my tools, and they arrived », recounted Messin in February 2015. The latter, who has always proclaimed his innocence, has since been detained in Salemba prison in the Indonesian capital, where the legislation against drugs is one of the harshest in the world. Like Mr. Atlaoui, four other French people are on death row.
Between terrorism and drug trafficking
Those who have been there the longest are the Franco-Algerian Stéphane Aït-Idir and the Franco-Moroccan Redouane Hammadi. The two men from La Courneuve, a suburb of Paris, were sentenced to death in Morocco in January 1995 for their participation in the attack on a hotel in Marrakech which left two Spanish tourists dead in August 1994.
Note that death sentences continue to be handed down in the country, but a moratorium is applied de facto since 1993. Also, a national debate exists on the death penalty, and on December 17, Morocco voted at the UN in favor of a resolution for a moratorium on the death penalty in the world.
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Across the border, in Algeria, a French woman, the only woman on this list, has been on death row since 2005. Or at least that is what NGOs assume, since very few Information has leaked since the arrest of this person, even whose first name is a mystery. “ Nora Lalam’s name came up, but we couldn’t confirm it “, slips Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan, general director of the NGO Ensemble contre la penalty de mort (ECPM). Even the reasons for her arrest are not known, nor even if her death sentence was carried out or if she is still alive. No information has come back in 19 years.
Finally, Chan Thao Phoumy, a Frenchman born in Laos, was sentenced to death in August 2010 by a court in Canton, in southern China, for manufacturing, transporting, smuggling and trafficking in methamphetamine. On the other hand, the Chinese authorities do not communicate about the death row prisoners in its cells. It’s even difficult to ensure that the man is still alive and locked up in China. “ We know that the consulate there is following his file and he is in a situation of great isolation because he is only entitled to consular visits, sighs Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan. All in a very difficult state on questions of democracy and penitentiary conditions. »
“ Three years ago, there were many more French death row prisoners »
The fact remains that these five French people currently sentenced to death are not necessarily representative of the geographical areas where this type of sentence is pronounced. “ A large majority of death sentences in the world against Westerners are in East and Southeast Asia for issues related to drug trafficking. », explains Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan. However, the last French people to be put to death, Gervais Boutanquoi and Simon Chemouil for murder and theft, were in 1983 in Zimbabwe. So what happens to the condemned?
“ If we look back three years, there were many more French death row prisoners abroad », explains the general director of ECPM. Between the French who left to wage jihad for the Islamic State and were sentenced to death by Iraq in 2019, who saw their convictions reclassified four years later, or Félix Dorfin and Michaël Blanc who saw their death sentences for drug trafficking drug reviews on appeal in Indonesia, many French people have recently been taken off death row (cf. framed).
Sentence commutation, a question of dialogue and diplomacy
The French State’s policy is to fight against the death penalty throughout the world and in all circumstances, each conviction somewhere becomes a diplomatic issue. “ France, for many crimes, particularly those in Asia, is very present. Consulates are well aware of their role », Notes Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan. On the other hand, on subjects such as terrorism, particularly at the time of the death sentence of eleven French nationals in Iraq, even though France was hard hit by attacks, ” the country was less exemplary », slips the head of ECPM. “ Even if today, we are satisfied that relations with Iraq were able to influence the commutation of the sentence. », he bounces back.
Overall, the fight against the death penalty for French nationals can be summed up in a few points. From prevention to travelers who go to countries where drug issues can be punishable by death, to the responsiveness of consulates on site to provide those concerned, who rarely know the legislation and the local language, ways to defend yourself. “ Afterwards, it plays out in the work of organizations like ours, with the establishment of a dialogue and a strategy with the States concerned. “, explains Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan.
Unknown death row inmates?
Still, some convicts probably slip through the cracks. Between those who have no family to notify, nor the possibility of notifying the consulate, once the sentence has been pronounced, those whose family turns away and those for whom the information does not come back, due to opaque judicial and prison systems in the countries concerned, the list is almost certainly longer. Also, if Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan “ can’t give a number » on the French who are currently facing a potential death sentence, several are concerned in Asia. “ There are some at the moment and there will be more, that’s for sure. », he concludes.
Just a few years ago, there were many more French people facing the death penalty around the world.
In recent years, several French people have seen their death sentences reclassified as life sentences. Starting with eleven French jihadists who left to fight for the Islamic State organization, captured by Arab-Kurdish forces and sentenced to death by Iraqi justice in 2019. Sentences commuted to life imprisonment in May 2023 by the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq. Since then, the inmates have expressed the wish, via their lawyers, to serve their sentence in France, given the inhumane conditions of detention in Al-Russafa prison in Baghdad.
In the United States, Joseph-François Jean also benefited from a commutation last April. Sentenced to death after killing two teenagers with a baseball bat in April 2010, in Baytown near Houston, Texas, he was finally recognized as being intellectually disabled at the time of the events, a diagnosis incompatible with the death penalty in this American state. He is now sentenced to life in prison without parole. Michael Legrand, also sentenced to death in the United States, but in Louisiana, saw his sentence changed to life in prison when he stabbed one of his friends to death using various objects in 1999, in order to steal money to pay his rent and doses of cocaine, to which he was addicted.
Félix Dorfin, arrested on the tourist island of Lombok in Indonesia in 2018, was sentenced beyond the requisitions, which were 20 years in prison, to the death penalty in 2019 for drug trafficking. Facts that he has always denied. The sentence was later reduced to 19 years in prison, which he is currently serving. At the time of the first verdict, France had positioned itself and publicly said “ preoccupied » by the fate of Félix Dorfin. Still in Indonesia, Michaël Blanc, a Frenchman from Bonneville (Haute-Savoie), was sentenced to life in prison, after being arrested on the island of Bali in 1999 for drug trafficking. His sentence was then reduced to 20 years of imprisonment before he obtained conditional release and was able to return free to France in 2018, after long diplomatic efforts on the part of Paris.