Jakarta.– Indonesia and the Netherlands have signed an agreement by which Jakarta will repatriate next Monday to the Netherlands two prisoners in Jakarta, one of whom is sentenced to death and the other to life imprisonment for having committed drug-related crimes in the Asian country.
The men, aged 74 and 65, will return to the Netherlands at the request of this nation, in a repatriation that cites health reasons, confirmed the Indonesian Minister of Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Penitentiary Institutions, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, in a statement on Tuesday.
The oldest prisoner is the one sentenced to death, who has a fractured arm, according to Indonesian authorities. He has spent 17 years behind bars, convicted of having introduced and distributed 600,000 ecstasy pills (MDMA) in Indonesia, a country that has some of the world’s toughest drug laws.
His compatriot, a Dutch citizen born in Turkey who suffers from hypertension, was initially sentenced to death for having trafficked 6.15 kilograms of MDMA, although the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on appeal, and has spent 11 years in prison.
Indonesia has not carried out executions since 2016, when it executed four prisoners, although it holds more than 85 people sentenced to the death penalty, according to Amnesty International.
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In the last year, the archipelago has repatriated convicts from France, Australia, and the Philippines, also convicted of drug-related crimes, in similar agreements.
Indonesia also repatriated five Australians, the last members of the ‘Bali Nine’ in prison.
Jakarta underscored that these are humanitarian measures that do not imply the pardon of the crimes.
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In 2024, Amnesty International recorded at least 1,518 executions in 15 countries, an increase of 32% compared to 2023.
