Indonesia to repatriate 2 Dutch prisoners, including one on death row

The decision came after Indonesia's coordinating minister for legal affairs and human rights, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, met Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel in Jakarta on Thursday.

Indonesia often sentences drug traffickers to death, although it has not carried out such a sentence for almost a decade.

Yusril said the Netherlands had formally requested the repatriation of 73-year-old Siegfried Mets, who was handed a death sentence for drug offenses, and Ali Tokman, 64, who was sentenced to life in prison.

"For these two people, our government has given the green light to return (them) to the Netherlands," he told reporters.

Yusril said he hoped a formal agreement for the repatriations would be signed soon.

However, he said the agreement would not change the verdicts rendered by Indonesian courts against the two men, and that it would be up to the Netherlands to decide whether to grant them clemency.

Mets was sentenced by a Jakarta court in 2008 after finding him guilty of distributing drugs, Indonesian media reported, and the decision was later upheld by higher courts.

Tokman was initially sentenced to death by a court in Surabaya, East Java, in 2015, after he was found guilty of distributing more than 6 kilograms (13 pounds) of the synthetic drug MDMA, court records showed.

His sentence was later commuted by a higher court to life in prison.

Dozens of foreigners, including a cocaine-smuggling British grandmother, are on death row in Indonesia for drug offences.

However, Jakarta has recently returned several high-profile prisoners, all convicted for drug charges, to their home countries.

Serge Atlaoui, a Frenchman on death row in Indonesia since 2007, was sent back to France in February and was later granted conditional release.

Mother-of-two Mary Jane Veloso was also sent back to the Philippines in December after spending almost 15 years on death row.

Jakarta also returned five members of the "Bali Nine" drug ring the same month, almost two decades after their arrest on the holiday island of Bali.

Indonesia last carried out executions in 2016, killing one of its own citizens and three Nigerian drug convicts by firing squad.