The UK has begun talks with Indonesia to repatriate a serial rapist convicted of assaulting scores of men.
Reynhard Sinaga, 41, was found guilty in Manchester in 2020 of assaulting 48 men, whom he drugged after taking them back to his apartment from bars and clubs in the city.
A Manchester court ruled that Sinaga must serve at least 30 years in prison for a total of 159 offences committed from January 2015 to May 2017.
Indonesia’s senior minister for law and human rights affairs, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, told reporters that talks with the British government were at an early stage.
The mechanism for such a repatriation would be decided later, he said, either through a prisoner transfer or through an exchange with a British prisoner jailed in Indonesia.
“No matter how wrong a citizen is, the country has the obligation to defend its citizen,” Yusril said.
“It’s not an easy job for us,” he said, adding there are many issues that needed to be negotiated with the British government.
The British embassy in Jakarta said on Saturday it did not have a prisoner transfer agreement with Indonesia, which it said would be required to transfer any prisoner from the country.
Indonesia is also looking at ways to repatriate Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, from Guantánamo Bay. He was accused of being involved in some deadly attacks including the 2002 Bali bombings.
Under British rules, Sinaga is only able to file for leniency after he has been in jail for 30 years, Yusril said.
Sinaga’s family have met the ministry’s representative to seek his repatriation.
If the British government agrees to his return he would be jailed in a maximum-security prison, Yusril said.
Sinaga, who has been in the UK since 2007, targeted young men who looked drunk or vulnerable and rendered them unconscious with a sedative.
The rape investigation was the largest in British legal history.
