Indonesian grandmother freed from Malaysian death row returns home: ‘feels unreal’

Ani Anggraeni spent nearly 15 years in prison for drug trafficking before her death sentence was commuted and she was later pardoned

An Indonesian woman who spent nearly 15 years on death row in a Malaysian prison for drug trafficking has returned home after receiving clemency, in a case rights groups say highlights the exploitation of poor migrant women in cross-border drug operations.

Ani Anggraeni, also known as Asih, boarded a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta late on Thursday after being freed from custody.

In a video message shared with This Week in Asia while en route, the 66-year-old said she was still struggling to process her release.

“I feel like it’s unreal, but it’s real,” she said. “I don’t know what to say. I can only be grateful to return to Indonesia and meet my family. Thank you very much for helping me.”

The grandmother of four added that she was “nervous [but] eager to get home”.

Ani’s release closes a chapter that began in 2011, when she left Indonesia after being promised a job as a carer in Malaysia, according to rights groups assisting her case.

Instead, they said, she was told to travel to Vietnam to collect a suitcase and transport it to northern Malaysian state of Penang. She was arrested at Penang airport on June 21 that year after authorities found 3.87kg (8.5lbs) of methamphetamine in the bag.

A Malaysian court later sentenced her to death for trafficking under the Dangerous Drugs Act.

Her case resurfaced after activists from Hayat, a Kuala Lumpur-based anti-death penalty group, met her in prison in early 2024.

The group’s head researcher, Tham Jia Vern, said the turning point came when Ani learned she might have endometrial cancer.

“The day I met her on death row was the day she had just learnt that she might have endometrial cancer. We immediately sprang to action,” Tham said.

After Ani’s death sentence was reduced to 30 years in May 2024, “we went hard on advocacy that a woman with cancer at her age shouldn’t still be in a Malaysian prison until 2031”, Tham said.

Ani’s lawyers and campaigners then pursued clemency.

On March 19, just before Eid al-Fitr – the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan – the governor of Penang granted her a pardon, sparing her from having to serve out the rest of her prison term.

Second chance

Ani’s release comes as Malaysia continues to work through the consequences of its landmark death penalty reforms.

The country has some of Southeast Asia’s toughest drug laws, with possession of as little as 15 grams (0.5oz) of heroin presumed to be trafficking and punishable by death.

In 2023, Kuala Lumpur abolished the mandatory death penalty, giving judges discretion in 11 offences and allowing resentencing for those already on death row. But the death penalty itself remains on the books for offences such as murder and drug trafficking.

An execution moratorium has been in place since 2018, and the last known execution was carried out in 2017.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department for Law and Institutional Reform M. Kulasegaran told parliament in November last year that 97 people remained on death row in Malaysia, down sharply after resentencing began.

Earlier data cited by Hayat showed that as of January 2025, there had been 140 death row prisoners, 40 of them convicted of drug offences.

Hayat said the resentencing process had reduced the number of people on death row for drug offences from 705 in 2024 to 40 in 2025.

Hayat and Jakarta’s Community Legal Aid Institute say Ani case bears all the hallmarks of trafficking: a false identity placed on legitimate travel documents, deceptive recruitment and coercion in a foreign country.

In a joint statement, the groups said at least eight other Indonesian women in Malaysia remain imprisoned in similar cases after having their death sentences commuted.

Tham said the region often recognised exploitation in some industries, but not when drugs were involved.

“We have the sense that scam centre workers are forced to work there and therefore deserve rescue and protection,” she said. “But somehow we don’t see it the same way when it’s people forced to traffic drugs.”

Source: scmp.com, Iman Muttaqin Yusof, April 3, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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