PARIS
French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius has summoned Indonesian Ambassador in Paris Hotmangaradja Pandjaitan in a bid to prevent the execution of a French national in Indonesia.
The move came Wednesday a day after Indonesia's Supreme Court rejected a request by French citizen Serge Atlaoui for a judicial review and Indonesian President Joko Widodo said it was "only a matter of time" before the country held its next round of executions.
Atlaoui, 51, was arrested on drug charges in 2005 in a laboratory producing ecstasy near Jakarta and has been on death row since 2007.
French President Francois Hollande said that if Indonesia went on with the execution of Atlaoui, it would damage bilateral relations.
"Executing Atlaoui would be damaging for Indonesia, damaging for the relations that we would like to have with it," Hollande told a press conference.
'State of emergency'
Earlier, government spokesman Stephane Le Foll told reporters Wednesday: "The French government will do all what it can to halt Mr. Atlaoui's death."
Fabius had called on Indonesian authorities Tuesday for a "gesture of leniency" arguing Atlaoui, who is among seven foreign nationals on death row, had a minor role in the drug operation and that Indonesian nationals involved had not been condemned to death.
The State Administrative Court of Jakarta rejected an appeal request by Spain-born Nigerian Raheem Agbaje Salami on Monday for a second time, with the judge saying the court did not have jurisdiction in such cases.
The court issued similar rulings earlier this month in the cases of two Australians, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
Marietta Karamanli, General Rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), expressed Wednesday her concern over the death sentence handed down and the will of the Indonesian government to carry out executions, namely of non-citizens.
"I strongly condemn the confirmation of the death penalty decided this week by Indonesia, and I reaffirm that the death penalty is contrary to the values of the Council of Europe and its member states, one of which Mr Atlaoui is a citizen. It is both inhumane and unjustified, and this is why I call on the government of Indonesia to cease its executions," said Karamanli in a statement.
Widodo said shortly after taking office in October last year that Indonesia was in a state of emergency concerning drugs and no pardons would be granted to those who face the death penalty for drug trafficking.
