By Ainur Rohmah
JAKARTA
Indonesia Attorney General’s Office said Monday that a French drugs convict whose final appeal was denied will not be executed during Ramadan.
Spokesman Tony Spontana told Anadolu Agency that Serge Areski Atlauoi would not face the firing squad during the Muslim month of fasting since "it's not proper to execute people in the holy month."
Earlier in the day, the Jakarta Administrative Court had rejected Atlauoi’s final challenge against President Joko Widodo's refusal of clemency.
Atlaoui, father of four, had been granted a last-minute reprieve from the country’s last round of executions that saw eight others put to death in late April.
He was arrested in 2005 in an ecstasy laboratory near Jakarta, which he claims he thought was an acrylics factory where he was installing machinery.
French President Francois Hollande has warned Indonesia of diplomatic consequences if it follows through with the death sentence.
The government of Indonesia -- the world’s most populous Muslim country -- had announced that the country began observing Ramadan last Thursday.
After declaring a "drug emergency, President Joko Widodo insisted late last year that he would reject clemency pleas from around 60 drug convicts scheduled to be executed.
The attorney general’s spokesman, Spontana told Anadolu Agency that the court’s rejection of Atlaoui showed its commitment to deny challenges to the president's prerogative on whether to grant clemency.
"Except the action [appeals] is used to extend the legal process," he said.
The spokesman added that the office is currently assessing how many drug convicts have exhausted their legal avenues before deciding who is set to face the firing squad.
Among the approximately 60 death row inmates, the majority are still at the legal stage of filing requests for a presidential clemency.
To date, only Atlaoui and Philippine national Mary Jane Fiesta Velosos -- who was originally also among the last round of convicts to be put to death -- have been able to delay their executions.
Veloso was granted a reprieve right before the April 29 execution after a woman who allegedly recruited her to act as courier turned herself in to Philippine police.
