Indonesia sends home 2 Dutch nationals convicted of drug trafficking

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Two Dutch nationals imprisoned in Indonesia on drug trafficking convictions were repatriated to the Netherlands on Monday evening, following an agreement between the two countries.

Indonesian authorities handed over the two prisoners, including one who had been sentenced to death, to Dutch authorities at a prison in Jakarta, ahead of the evening flight.

The men wore baseball caps and bright green T-shirts at the handover. They were being treated for health problems, and the Netherlands had requested their repatriation on humanitarian grounds.

Indonesia’s deputy minister for immigration and correctional coordination, I Nyoman Gede Surya Mataram, said at a news conference in Jakarta that the two men would continue to serve their prison sentences in the Netherlands.

Siegfried Mets, 74, the prisoner on death row, was convicted of involvement in the shipment of 600,000 ecstasy pills from the Netherlands to Indonesia. He has been held in a prison in Jakarta since February 2008.

Another prisoner, Ali Tokman, 65, was taken into custody at Surabaya airport in December 2014 after customs officers found slightly more than 6 kilograms (13.5 pounds) of brown-colored MDMA, a psychoactive drug. He has served 11 years of a life sentence.

Indonesia, under President Prabowo Subianto’s administration, has sent several foreign prisoners to their home countries under bilateral agreements. They included a Filipina who faced the death penalty for drugs, five Australians convicted of heroin trafficking, and two British nationals who also faced the death penalty and a life sentence for smuggling drugs to Indonesia.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major drug smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.

About 530 people are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes, including nearly 100 foreigners, the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections’ data showed last month. Indonesia’s last executions, of a citizen and three foreigners, were carried out in July 2016.