DFA: No official notice on Mary Jane execution in Indonesia

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Wednesday said the Philippine government has not received an official notification from Indonesia that convicted Filipino drug trafficker Mary Jane Veloso will be among the next batch of death row inmates to be executed soon.
Quoting the National Narcotic Agency, the Jakarta Post reported that 14 of 55 convicted drug convicts are awaiting their execution by firing squad at a still undetermined date.
Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said the Philippine Embassy in Jakarta has not received a government notice if the death sentence on Veloso, who was spared from death at the last minute in April 2015, will be carried out.
"Usually they give an advance notification," he said. "Since we did not receive an official notice, we can assume that nothing will happen."
Indonesia spared Veloso from execution last year after President Benigno Aquino III pleaded for her life.
Veloso, a mother of two, was among the nine foreign and local death row prisoners, including Australians, scheduled for execution by firing squad on April 29, 2015 for drug-related charges.

All eight were put to death, except Veloso, when the Indonesian government ordered a stay in her execution following President Aquino’s last minute appeal to counterpart Jokowi Widodo to turn her into a witness in the illegal recruitment case of her recruiters in the Philippines.

The Philippine government is hoping the Indonesian government would reconsider the death penalty on Veloso and commute her death penalty to a lower sentence if it could prove in an ongoing hearing in a Manila court that she was tricked by her Filipino recruiter into bringing the drug-laden suitcase to Indonesia.

"The deferment was premised on the understanding that we need the testimony of Mary Jane in connection to the case filed against her recruiter," Jose said.
"So it’s important that we push through with the case and if we can prove that she is just a victim then we then we can use that as basis to request again for clemency," he added. —KBK, GMA News

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