Wife of Frenchman on Indonesia death row still hopeful

The wife of a Frenchman on death row in Indonesia says she refuses to believe she has seen him for the last time, as fears grow he will soon be executed with a group of foreigners.

Serge Atlaoui has been detained on Indonesia's notorious Nusakambangan prison island in Central Java since he was sentenced to death in 2007 on drugs charges.

The Frenchman, 51, had his appeal for clemency rejected in January by Indonesian President Joko Widodo, a vocal supporter of capital punishment for drug offenders.

Atlaoui was joined this week on the island by two Australian drug traffickers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, whose transfer from Bali signals their execution date, and that of several other foreigners, is drawing near.

Atlaoui's wife Sabine visited him in prison this week and refused to believe it will be her last, as she pins all her hope on a legal challenge for a stay of execution.

"Yes, of course we are worried," she told AFP in Cilacap, the port town where family must wait before visiting Nusakambangan.

"But we've got this judicial review that has been lodged, and we do hope that through this process, the truth can be revealed."

Atlaoui, a father of four, was arrested near Jakarta in 2005 in a secret laboratory producing ecstasy.

Imprisoned in Indonesia for ten years, he has always denied the charges saying he was installing industrial machinery in what he thought was an acrylics factory.