A Filipina sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking must be repatriated in the early hours of Wednesday, an Indonesian immigration official said Monday, after an agreement signed around ten days ago between Manila and Jakarta.
Officers took Mary Jane Veloso, 39, out of her prison in southern Java island, an AFP journalist noted, before taking her to another detention center in the capital Jakarta late Sunday.
She will leave for the Philippines before dawn on Wednesday, I Nyoman Gede Surya Mataram, an immigration official, said at a press conference.
Ms. Veloso will board a Cebu Airlines flight shortly after midnight, he said.
The Philippine embassy in Jakarta did not immediately respond.
| © AFP Mary Jane Veloso at Wonosari Women's Correctional Institution, Yogyakarta, December 13, 2024 |
Mary Jane Veloso was arrested in 2010 while carrying 2.6 kilos of heroin in her suitcase, then sentenced to death.
In 2015, the Philippine government obtained a last-minute reprieve to avoid her execution, after a woman suspected of having recruited her was arrested and tried for human trafficking.
Her family and supporters say she is innocent and was the victim of an international drug trafficking network.
“It's a miracle because, honestly, even now it still feels like a dream. Every morning when I wake up I think about my aspirations, which I never had certainty about,” Mary said Jane Veloso to AFP on Friday.
Indonesia's drug laws, one of the toughest in the world, provide for penalties up to and including execution for traffickers.
At least 530 people in total are on death row in Indonesia, most of them for drug-related cases, according to data from rights group KontraS based on official figures.
According to those from the Immigration Ministry, there were 96 foreigners there at the beginning of November, all for drug-related crimes.
