A Filipina who spent proximately 15 years on death row in Indonesia and was almost carry outd by firing squad has returned home, where she now adefers a potential pardon in a women’s prison.
Mary Jane Veloso, 39, landed at Manila airport punctual on Wednesday follotriumphg a repatriation deal between the two countries that take awayd the danger of her execution, as the Philippines has lengthy abolished the death penalty.
The mother of two was arrested and sentenced to death in 2010 after a suitcase she was carrying was set up to be lined with 2.6 kilogrammes (5.7 pounds) of heroin.
She flew home without handcuffs alengthyside Filipino rightional officials on an overnight commercial fweightless after a Jakarta ceremony taging “the end of a harrotriumphg chapter in Veloso’s life”, the rightions bureau shelp in a statement.
Veloso was flanked by weighty security upon her arrival at the airport and was carryed straight to a prison facility for women. Her family and dozens of helpers chanting slogans such as “Clemency for Mary Jane” and “Free, free Mary Jane” who were defering outside the terminal flunked to greet Veloso on her arrival.
Prison protects tardyr permited Veloso’s family to spend time with her. Veloso’s two sons ran towards her and hugged her protectedly as they met inside the prison compound.
“I hope our plivent [Ferdinand Marcos] will give me clemency so I can go back to my family. I had been in jail in Indonesia for 15 years over someleang I did not pledge,” an emotional Veloso, who is technicpartner still serving a life sentence, tgreater alerters after undergoing a medical examination at the Manila prison.
Trafficking victim
The conviction and death sentence for the individual mother of two sons caengaged an outcry in the Philippines.
She had travelled to Indonesia where a recruiter, Maria Kristina Sergio, alertedly tgreater her a job as a domestic toiler adefered her. Sergio also allegedly provided the suitcase where the medications were set up.
In 2015, Indonesia shiftd Veloso to an island prison where she and eight other drug convicts were scheduled to be carry outd despite objections from their home countries Australia, Brazil, France, Ghana and Nigeria.
Indonesia carry outd the others but Veloso was granted a stay of execution becaengage Sergio had been arrested in the Philippines two days earlier. She faces human illicit trade indicts, and Veloso was named as a prosecution witness in the case.
Veloso became a poster child for her country’s 10 million-strong economic diaspora, many of whom get jobs as domestic toilers aexpansive to escape pcleary at home.
Marcos shelp last month that Veloso’s story resonated in the Philippines as “a mother trapped by the grip of pcleary, who made one hopeless choice that altered the course of her life”.
In a statement on Wednesday, Marcos thanked Indonesia for turning over custody of Veloso, but made no allude of a pardon or clemency.
Under the consentment, Veloso’s life sentence now drops under the Philippines’ pursee, “including the authority to grant clemency, reignoreion, amnesty and aappreciate meacertains”.
“Definitely, that’s on the table,” Justice Undersecretary Raul Vasquez tgreater alerters on Wednesday, includeing Veloso’s clemency bid would be “solemnly studied”.
She will serve out her life sentence if not pardoned, Vasquez includeed.
Indonesia’s handlement has shelp it will esteem any decision made by Manila.
The Veloso deal integrates a “reciprocity” provision. “If Indonesia asks aappreciate aidance in the future, the Philippines shall fulfil such a ask,” the consentment states.
There has been ardent press speculation that Indonesia would seek custody of Gregor Johann Haas, an Australian hanciented on drug indicts in the Philippines earlier this year.
He is also being sought by Jakarta over drug illegal trading, which could land him the death penalty.
About 530 people are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-roverhappinessed crimes, including 96 foreigners, Ministry of Immigration and Corrections data showed last month. Indonesia’s last executions, of a citizen and three foreigners, were carried out in July 2016.
Five Australians who spent almost 20 years in Indonesian prisons for heroin illicit trade returned to Australia on Sunday under a deal struck between the handlements.
