Filipina woman on Indonesia’s death row recalls shocking last-minute reprieve and ‘miraculous’ transfer

YOGYAKA, Indonesia (AP) — Filipino death row inmate Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso knelt and prayed as police led her to be executed on an Indonesian prison island in May 2015. location, just feet from her isolation cell, which houses 13 inmates.

As she prayed, the Philippine government was wrapping up a long legal battle over her fate. Veloso’s life was eventually pardoned by the Indonesian Attorney General’s Office, which issued a stay of execution shortly before Veloso was to be executed along with eight other death row inmates.

“Lord, there are many people out there who believe that I am guilty, but there are also many who believe that I am innocent. Lord, you are the one who knows everything, and you know that I am innocent, so I beg you, please prove it by saving me. That,” Veloso recalled through tears in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday at a women’s prison in Yogyakarta.

Tricked into becoming a drug dealer

The purpose of the probation was to provide an opportunity for Veloso’s testimony to reveal how a criminal group deceived her into becoming an unwitting drug trafficking accomplice and courier.

Veloso was shocked when a group of officials from the Attorney General’s Office informed her of the stay of execution when she was taken to the execution site on Nusa Kampangan Prison Island. She burst into tears, remembering a cocoon she had seen on a branch near her cell the night before.

“In the Philippines, we believe that if there is a cocoon, there will be new life,” Veloso said. “It means I won’t be executed because God will give me new life.”

Veloso, 39, was arrested at the airport in the ancient Indonesian city of Yogyakarta in 2010 when officials found about 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin in her luggage. A single mother of two sons was convicted and sentenced to death.

Veloso maintained his innocence throughout his 14 years in prison. She spent much of her time in prison designing Indonesian batik clothing, painting, tailoring and learning interior design and other skills.

Veloso received a stay of execution after her alleged boss was arrested in the Philippines, where authorities asked Indonesia to help pursue her case. The woman who allegedly recruited Veloso to work in Kuala Lumpur, Maria Kristina Sergio, surrendered to Philippine police two days before her scheduled execution.

The dramatic turn of events began last month when Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made an unusual last-ditch effort to delay Veloso’s death, announcing that after a decade of pleas from Manila, Indonesia had reached a deal to bring Veloso back. Send back home.

“Mary Jane Veloso is coming home,” Marcos said in a statement. “Mary Jane’s case has been a long and difficult journey since she was arrested on drug trafficking charges and sentenced to death in 2010.”

Practical arrangement

Indonesia and the Philippines signed a “practical arrangement” on December 6 to repatriate Veloso, which is expected to be completed before Christmas.

Indonesian Deputy Minister of Justice Raul Vasquez said that although there is no treaty between the two countries, both Indonesia and the Philippines are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the transfer of criminals in the ASEAN region is carried out in accordance with the group’s Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. . After the signing ceremony, the Philippine Ministry of Justice delivered a speech.

Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Correctional Affairs Yusriel Ihza Mahendra hailed the handover agreement as a “historic milestone” between Indonesia and the Philippines and an important milestone for the new government of President Prabowo Su Part of Bianto’s “good neighborly” policy.

Mahendra said if the Philippines wanted to pardon Veloso or grant clemency once deported, “that is entirely their right and we have to respect that as well,” the minister added. The Philippines, Asia’s largest Roman Catholic country, has abolished the death penalty.

“Like a miracle”

Veloso described the decision as “like a miracle when I had lost all hope.”

“I was separated from my children and my parents for almost 15 years and I couldn’t see them grow up,” she said with tears filling her eyes. “I wanted the opportunity to take care of my children and be close to my parents.”

Veloso was born in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, the youngest of five siblings living in a family of extreme poverty. Her father worked as a seasonal agricultural worker on a sugar plantation, and her mother collected discarded bottles and plastic to sell to junk shops. Veloso dropped out of high school as a freshman and married her husband when she was 16.

The couple later separated and she became a single mother of two young sons, forcing her to immigrate to Dubai in 2009 to work as a maid. After an attempted rape by her employer, she returned to the Philippines before the end of her two-year contract. A year later, Veloso was recruited by Sergio to work as a domestic servant in Malaysia, but was later transferred to Indonesia.

Major drug smuggling center

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said that although Indonesia has some of the strictest anti-drug laws in the world, it remains a major drug trafficking hub, in part because international drug cartels target its young population.

The last execution in Indonesia was in July 2016, when an Indonesian and three foreigners were shot dead by a firing squad.

Figures from the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections last month showed there were about 530 death row inmates in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes, including 96 foreigners. The Indonesian government recently agreed in principle to repatriate five Australian nationals and one French national to their home countries.

“I was not a good Catholic before, and prison transformed my life into a skilled person, closer to God,” Veloso said. “I’m ready to build a new life, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon.”

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Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.