Mother identifies Mary Jane Veloso's alleged recruiters in court

On the eve of the first anniversary of Mary Jane Veloso's near execution in Indonesia, her mother positively identified in court the two alleged recruiters blamed for sending her to Yogyakarta Airport with heroin in her luggage.
On Thursday, April 28, Celia Veloso took the stand for the prosecution during the trial for the human trafficking case filed against Maria Christina Sergio and Julius Lacanilao at the Baloc Regional Trial Court Branch 37 in Nueva Ecija.
She followed daughter Maritess, who testified as the prosecution's first witness on a hearing on March 29, according to the National Union of People's Lawyers.
The NUPL said both Celia and Maritess positively identified Sergio and Lacanilao, who the group said "kept a cocky poise while side commenting, snickering and shaking their head" during the trial.
"[Celia] vividly recalled, while sobbing copiously, the miserable fate that gripped her youngest daughter. Celia bellowed that what happened to Mary Jane and their whole family cannot be assuaged by anything in this world," NUPL secretary general Edre Olalia said.
Veloso was arrested at the Yogyakarta Airport in 2010 and sentenced to death after Indonesian authorities found 2.6 kilograms of heroin inside the lining of a suitcase Sergio allegedly handed her in Malaysia. She was given a last-minute reprieve on April 29 last year.
The trial for the human trafficking case against Sergio and Lacanilao will resume on June 14 at 1:30 p.m., the NUPL said.
Olalia claimed earlier that the prosecution lined up 12 witnesses in the qualified human trafficking, simple illegal recruitment and estafa cases filed against Sergio and Lacanilao.  —Rie Takumi/KBK, GMA News


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