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.
Advertisement
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.
Advertisement
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.