Indonesia sends home two Dutch convicts, one on death row, after repatriation deal

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JAKARTA, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Two Dutch prisoners convicted of drug offences left Indonesia for the Netherlands on Monday night, after both nations signed a repatriation deal last week.

Siegfried Mets, 74, and Ali Tokman, 65, are the latest in a series of foreigners to be reprieved in the last year from death row or life terms in Indonesia, following five Australians, a British woman, a French man and a Philippine woman.

Mets and Tokman flew to Amsterdam from Jakarta at around 7.40 p.m. (0040 GMT), law ministry official I Nyoman Gede Surya Mataram told Reuters.

Indonesia’s law ministry formally handed them to representatives of the Dutch embassy at a ceremony in prison.

“This transfer is part of law enforcement and humanitarian cooperation based on an official request from the Dutch government and then approved by the Indonesian authorities,” Surya Mataram told a press conference.

Wearing green shirts and masks, the men were silent as they sat behind officials at the ceremony where Adriaan Palm, the Dutch deputy ambassador to Indonesia, expressed gratitude for a step he said reflected good ties between the two countries.

It is unclear whether the two will be imprisoned after they return to their home country. “Once they arrive in the Netherlands, they will abide to Dutch’s law,” Surya Mataram said.

Both had received the death penalty, Mets in 2008, for smuggling and distributing 600,000 ecstasy pills, and Tokman in 2015, for smuggling 6 kg (13 lb) of Methylene Dioxy Meth Amphetamine (MDMA).

The latter had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment on appeal.

The ministry said both were in good condition before their departure, though Mets had received medical treatment for a fracture sustained in a fall, while Tokman had a history of hypertension.

(Reporting by Ananda Teresia; Editing by Clarence Fernandez amd Andrew Heavens)