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In rare decision, court overturns death sentence for French drug convict
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Dorfin Felix, 35, listens to the judges during a hearing at the Mataram District Court on May 20. (JP/Panca Nugraha)
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French national sentenced to death for smuggling drugs to Indonesia has had his sentence commuted to 19 years in prison by an appeals court in West Nusa Tenggara, in a decision deemed rare in a country known to have some of the world’s strictest drug laws.
The Mataram High Court overturned on Monday the death penalty previously handed down by the Mataram District Court against Felix Dorfin, 35, after he was found guilty in May of smuggling drugs totaling 2.77 kilograms to Lombok.
Besides sentencing him to 19 years in prison — lower than prosecutors’ demand of 20 years — the panel of judges at the high court also ordered Dorfin to pay a fine of Rp 10 billion (US$ 704,970).
“Thank God, [Felix] has escaped the death penalty,” Dorfin’s lawyer Denny Nur Indra told The Jakarta Post on Friday in response to the ruling.
Dorfin was found guilty of violating Article 133 on drug smuggling under the 2009 Narcotics Law.
The Frenchman was arrested in September last year by customs officers at Lombok International Airport in Mataram, where Dorfin had flown in from Singapore’s Changi Airport.
Authorities found various drugs in two suitcases he was carrying, including nine packages of MDMA, used to make ecstasy pills, weighing 2.47 kg, crystal methamphetamine and hundreds of ecstasy pills.
