Mary Jane Veloso’s testimony tentatively set for December


By NICOLE-ANNE C. LAGRIMAS, GMA News
A Nueva Ecija court has tentatively set the taking of Filipina death row inmate Mary Jane Veloso's testimony through written questions in Indonesia for December 12.
Veloso is the prosecution's last witness in the illegal recruitment, human trafficking and estafa case against Maria Cristina Sergio and Julius Lacanilao, the alleged recruiters she claimed tricked her into smuggling heroin into Indonesia in 2010.
She is imprisoned in Yogyakarta, having been spared from execution for drug trafficking in 2015 after Sergio surrendered to authorities. Manila had proposed to Jakarta that Veloso be turned into a witness.
Weeks before what would have been the final chance for the prosecution to present her as a witness, the Supreme Court allowed the taking of her testimony by way of deposition through written interrogatories.
The National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL), the private prosecutor, said the taking of Veloso's testimony in December is still subject to the resolution of Sergio and Lacanilao's intended appeal of the SC decision and arrangements between the Philippines and Indonesia.
The two defendants had also asked the trial court to defer action on the case while the High Court decision has not attained finality.
The NUPL said Monday that another case for qualified illegal recruitment against Sergio and Lacanilao, filed by three other Filipinas, has been submitted for resolution. The promulgation of judgment is set for January 30, 2020. — RSJ, GMA News

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