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

Ani Anggraeni is seen in prison last year.

Photo: Handout 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.

Ani Anggraeni poses for Hayat before and after her pardon.

Photo: Instagram/hayatlifemy 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.

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 posse

原文链接: 南华早报