Indonesia demands 20 years for French drug smuggler

Mataram (Indonesia) (AFP) -- Indonesian prosecutors Monday demanded a 20-year jail term for a French man accused of drug trafficking, a crime punishable by execution under the country's tough smuggling laws.

Felix Dorfin was arrested in September carrying a false-bottomed suitcase filled with four kilogrammes (8.8 pounds) of cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines at the airport in Lombok, a holiday island next to Bali, authorities said.

Lead prosecutor Ginung Pratidina told a court in Lombok Monday that Dorfin, 35, had been "legally and convincingly" proven guilty.

But he asked for a 20-year prison sentence and that Dorfin pay a whopping 10 billion rupiah ($700,000) fine or serve an additional year in jail.

Indonesian courts have been known to go beyond prosecutors' demands, so Dorfin could still be at risk of execution by firing squad if convicted.

A date for the verdict has not been set.

The accused drug trafficker looked down and shook his head as he listened to the sentencing recommendation.

"Dorfin told me that 20 years in prison is too hard," his lawyer Deny Nur Indra told AFP after the hearing.

"But ... considering all the facts presented in court, I expect he would serve less than 15 years."

The Frenchman made headlines in January when he escaped from a police detention centre and spent nearly two weeks on the run before he was captured.

A female police officer was arrested for allegedly helping Dorfin escape from jail in exchange for 14.5 million rupiah.

Indonesia has executed several foreign drug smugglers in the past including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran -- the accused ringleaders of the Bali Nine heroin smuggling gang.

Its only female member was released from jail last year.

Indonesia has not executed anyone since 2016, but a number of foreigners are still on death row including a cocaine-smuggling British grandmother and Serge Atlaoui, a Frenchman who has been on death row since 2007.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, April 29, 2019

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