Dutch drug convict in Indonesia transferred ahead of deportation
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Dutch prisoner Ali Tokman (in centre of the car back seat) leaving the Surabaya Prison in Porong, East Java province on Dec 7, 2025.
PHOTO: AFP
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SURABAYA - A Dutch drug convict left a provincial Indonesian jail for transfer to the capital Jakarta on Dec 7, 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 Indonesian jails for years after falling foul of the country’s strict narcotics laws.
They will return home on humanitarian grounds on Dec 8, after a deal struck this week between Indonesia and the Dutch government.
Tokman has been moved from Surabaya Prison in East Java province and will fly to Jakarta, where he will be taken to Cipinang Penitentiary, the head of Surabaya, Mr Sohibur Rachman, told AFP.
An AFP photographer saw Tokman being escorted by Indonesian 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 6kg 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 Dec 3 said the Netherlands had requested their repatriation for humanitarian reasons.
Mets has been suffering from a broken hand, and Tokman from high blood pressure, Jakarta’s 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 2024.
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.
In November, Indonesia deported Lindsay Sandiford
