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View all search resultsDutch drug convict in Indonesia transferred ahead of deportation
Drug smugglers Ali Tokman, 65, and Siegfried Mets, 74, have been languishing in jails for years after falling foul of the country's strict narcotics laws.
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Dutch prisoner Ali Tokman (center) sits in a car as he leaves the Surabaya Prison in Porong, East Java province on December 7, 2025, before being transferred to Jakarta for deportation under an agreement between Indonesia and the Netherlands. (AFP/Juni Kriswanto)
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Dutch drug convict left an East Java jail for transfer to Jakarta on Sunday, a day before he and a death-row prisoner were due to be deported to the Netherlands.
Drug smugglers Ali Tokman, 65, and Siegfried Mets, 74, have been languishing in jails for years after falling foul of the country's strict narcotics laws.
They will return home on humanitarian grounds on Monday, after a deal struck this week between Indonesia and the Dutch government.
Tokman has been moved from Surabaya Prison in East Java and will fly to Jakarta, where he will be taken to Cipinang Penitentiary, the head of the prison, Sohibur Rachman, told AFP.
An AFP photographer saw Tokman being escorted by the police from the jail. Mets is already behind bars at Cipinang, which is infamous for poor conditions and overcrowding.
Tokman was handed a death sentence in 2015 for smuggling more than six kilograms of the stimulant MDMA. The sentence was later commuted to life.
Mets was sentenced to death in 2008 for smuggling 600,000 ecstasy pills into Indonesia, but his execution had not been carried out.
Dutch ambassador Marc Gerritsen on Wednesday said the Netherlands had requested their repatriation for humanitarian reasons.
Mets has been suffering from a broken hand, and Tokman from high blood pressure, human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra has said.
Indonesia has some of the world's toughest drug laws, but has moved to free several high-profile foreign detainees since last year.
Ministers have generally cited humanitarian reasons for their release, but have also indicated that the transfers could eventually help Jakarta bring back Indonesians detained abroad.
More than 90 foreign nationals were on death row in Indonesia, all for drug convictions, as of early November, according to the immigration and corrections ministry.
Last month, Indonesia deported Lindsay Sandiford, a British grandmother held on death row for more than a decade.
