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Hadi Azmi

A crude map drawn from memory marking a mosque, train station and warren of small Jakarta lanes that lead to her home finally reconnected Ani Anggraeni with a family who had feared she had already been executed in a Malaysian jail for drug trafficking.
Like more than a million other Indonesians, Ani left for economic opportunities in neighbouring Malaysia, where many work – legally and illegally – to send money back to their families. It was 2011, and the then 51-year-old had never left Indonesia before.
Fourteen years on, she remains in a Malaysian prison, and at 65, is battling cancer.
The route to jail began with a fateful decision to listen to a neighbour in the northern Jakarta district of Ancol who was touting lucrative jobs in the nearby nation.
Contracted to pick up a package containing what she believed were luxury clothes for delivery in Malaysia, she was instead arrested at the Penang airport for smuggling in 4kg (8.8lbs) of methamphetamine – a crime that carries an automatic death sentence.
Cut off from her family by a lost phone, the jailed woman’s relatives feared she had been executed under the country’s severe anti-drug laws.
The family lost contact in 2017 after Ani’s daughter misplaced her phone. Holding the only phone number Ani knew, it was the only way they had to contact her back. She has also been moved through several prisons over the years before ending up at the Sungai Udang prison in Malacca.

Armed with her home address, Ani pleaded with the Indonesian embassy to find her family, but was told they could not find the place.
Ani sought help from the Kuala Lumpur-based anti-death penalty group Hayat during a prison visit in February last year, providing them with a crude map of her neighbourhood drawn from memory.
With the help of Jakarta’s Legal Aid Institute, her family was finally found, leading to the once unthinkable event on September 19: Ani received her first prison visit from her loved ones.
“For over eight years, that has been the question we ask each other: is she still alive?” her granddaughter Siti Yuliana, or Yuli, told This Week in Asia in Kuala Lumpur. Yuli was only 11 when her grandmother left their home for Malaysia.
Seeing her alive – albeit through the prison glass – brought a well of emotions to the surface. “We cried, we cried a lot, when we finally saw each other. We only had less than half an hour, and most of it was spent crying.”
Escaping death
Alongside Singapore, Malaysia has some of the harshest laws in Southeast Asia against drug use and trafficking, where the possession of as little as 15 grams (0.5oz) of heroin is automatically presumed to be trafficking and deserving of the death penalty. As of January 2025, there were 140 death row prisoners, of whom 40 were convicted for drug offences.
Malaysia relaxed its position in 2018, when it issued a moratorium on executions. The mandatory death penalty provision was fully repealed in 2023. The last execution carried out by the country was in May 2017.
Ani’s defence had argued that she was the unwitting victim of an attempt to use mules to smuggle drugs. But the judge dismissed her claim as “nonsensical” and sentenced her to death by hanging in 2013, under Malaysia’s no compromise mandatory death penalty for drug traffickers.
According to Hayat, Ani’s case is just one example of a “vast, gendered crisis” that leaves Indonesian women vulnerable once they migrate to work in the neighbouring country.

More than 621,000 Indonesian women went abroad for work between 2019 and 2023, and the country’s National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) recorded 1,683 cases of gender-based violence against them, Hayat said.
Stories of women duped into working in nonexistent jobs are common in Malaysia. Some were promised a lucrative position in the medical sector only to be forced into being domestic workers or kitchen help. Drug syndicates often exploit the vulnerable and desperate as drug couriers, recruiting them via human trafficking tactics.
At the time of Ani’s arrest, Malaysia’s foreign ministry had warned of a spike in crime syndicates from Nigeria and South Africa luring women – including Malaysians – into acting as drug mules by offering them jobs or, in some cases, holidays.
“Many, like Ani, are ensnared by tracking networks that exploit their vulnerability,” Hayat’s researcher Tham Jia Vern told This Week in Asia. “As of June 2024, 155 of the 165 Indonesians facing the death penalty abroad were in Malaysia, the vast majority for drug offences.”
However, not all drug mules are duped by syndicates.
In June, Indonesian authorities arrested eight drug couriers who strapped over 2kg (4.4lbs) of crystal methamphetamine to their bodies before boarding a flight from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport in Makassar.
Ani’s daughter-in-law Kokom Komalasari, 44, said there were warning signs from the start, including the neighbour giving Ani a different name in her travel documents. “I told her not to go, but she still went,” Kokom said.
Cancer spreading
Ani has developed uterine cancer while in prison and has allegedly been subjected to physical abuse and neglect, despite recovering from a major surgery to treat the cancer.
“Her life inside prison has become a case study in neglect and abuse, in breach of international standards like the UN’s Nelson Mandela and Bangkok Rules,” Tham said.
The UN’s 2015 Nelson Mandela Rules set minimum global standards for the treatment of prisoners, prohibiting torture, limiting solitary confinement and ensuring access to healthcare, dignity and accountability in prison management.

The 2010 Bangkok Rules complement them by addressing the specific needs of women offenders. Together, they serve as key human rights benchmarks for prison systems worldwide.
The Prison Department did not respond to requests for comment on Ani’s abuse allegations by This Week in Asia.
The department is being investigated by police over a separate claim that dozens of prison wardens had assaulted more than 100 prisoners in Taiping prison in January, allegedly leading to the death of an inmate.
Malaysia’s death row inmates received a rare piece of good news in 2018, when the government made the first move to abolish the mandatory death penalty. Instead, judges were given discretion on sentencing while a moratorium was imposed on executions.
The full repeal of the mandatory clause allowed 906 death row prisoners to have their sentences reviewed. Most – including Ani – had death sentences reduced to serving between 30 and 40 years in jail.
With their matriarch saved from the gallows, Yuli and Kokom are now trying to bring her home. They have petitioned for her pardon or a return via a prisoner transfer agreement, an initiative being explored by the governments in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.
There are more than 5,500 Indonesian prisoners held in Malaysia, while 302 Malaysian inmates are in Indonesia.
Ani’s case is made more urgent as her cancer is spreading. “For Ani Anggraeni, now 65 and frail, such a transfer would be a lifeline. But every delay, every missed consular visit, every denial of care compounds the injustice,” Tham said.
On the current reduced sentence, Ani will be eligible for release in 2032 – when she will be 72 years old.


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Malaysia

Indonesian jailed in Malaysia reunited with family using map drawn from memory

The map that Ani Anggraeni drew of her hometown. Photo: Handout

Ani Anggraeni remains in a Malaysian prison, and at 65, is battling cancer. Photo: Hadi Azmi

Indonesian domestic helpers in Hong Kong. More than 621,000 Indonesian women went abroad for work between 2019 and 2023. Photo: Nora Tam

Ani Anggraeni left Indonesia for economic opportunities in neighbouring Malaysia in 2011. Photo: Hadi Azmi

In Jakarta, marriages involving Indonesians and Singaporeans are now more common

A couple in a village in Mamuju, West Sulawesi, Indonesia asking for their parents’ blessing. Photo: AFP

Indonesia reviews France’s request to transfer death-row convict

French drug convict and death-row prisoner Serge Atlaoui (right) looks at his Indonesian lawyer Nancy Yuliana during a court hearing in Tangerang outside Jakarta on April 1, 2015. Photo: AFP

Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Law, Human Rights, Immigration, and Corrections Yusril Ihza Mahendra shakes hands with Fabien Penone, France’s ambassador to Indonesia, East Timor, and Asean, during a meeting in Jakarta on December 20. Photo: AFP

Mary Jane Veloso (centre), who spent 14 years on death row in Indonesia for smuggling 2.6kg of heroin, waves as she is reunited with her family in Mandaluyong, the Philippines, on December 18. Photo: AP

Indonesia’s Prabowo is repatriating foreign drug convicts. Critics say it’s about politics

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto. Photo: Reuters

The head of the Class IIB Womens Penitentiary, Evi Loliancy, shows a recent photo of Filipino death-row inmate Mary Jane Veloso (centre) playing a keyboard ahead of Christmas celebrations, during a press conference in Yogyakarta on November 21. Photo: AFP

Indonesia agrees to return Filipino death row inmate Mary Jane Veloso to Philippines

Filipino drug convict and death row prisoner Mary Jane Veloso pictured in 2015. Photo: AFP

Cesar Veloso and Celia Veloso, parents of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipino drug convict in Indonesia, join a protest in Manila to appeal for clemency last year. Photo: AFP

Indonesia’s then president Joko Widodo attends an event in Jakarta in July. Photo: AFP

Activists carry placards in Manila in 2015, urging the Philippine government to save Mary Jane Veloso. Photo: Reuters

This Week in Asia

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The 65-year-old woman, in prison for smuggling in methamphetamine, had lost contact with her family for years


The 65-year-old woman, in prison for smuggling in methamphetamine, had lost contact with her family for years.


Indonesia

Crime

Indonesian jailed in Malaysia reunited with family using map drawn from memory

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The 65-year-old woman, in prison for smuggling in methamphetamine, had lost contact with her family for years

The 65-year-old woman, in prison for smuggling in methamphetamine, had lost contact with her family for years