WUNRN
INDONESIA EXECUTES 8 CONVICTED ON DRUG CHARGES, BUT MARY
JANE VELOSO OF THE PHILIPPINES WAS GIVEN STAY OF EXECUTION
“The authorities granted the stay of execution to Mary Jane Veloso, 30, a
Philippine citizen, after the Philippine government requested her assistance in
a human trafficking case involving a woman who surrendered to the Philippine
police on Tuesday.”
By JOE COCHRANE - APRIL 28, 2015
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Defying international condemnation and rejecting
11th-hour pleas for clemency, the Indonesian government executed eight drug
convicts after midnight on Wednesday, including seven foreigners.
But the execution of a ninth convict, scheduled to happen at the same time,
was unexpectedly postponed at nearly the last minute, according to the
Indonesian attorney general’s office.
The executed prisoners, from Australia, Brazil
and Nigeria, along with one Indonesian, were shot by police firing squads at
about 12:25 a.m. local time at a site outside the gates of Pasir Putih prison
on the island of Nusa Kambangan off the southern coast of Java, according to
the attorney general’s office.
The authorities granted the stay of execution to Mary Jane Veloso, 30, a
Philippine citizen, after the Philippine government requested her assistance in
a human trafficking case involving a woman who surrendered to the Philippine
police on Tuesday.
“An alleged perpetrator of human trafficking gave herself up, and Mary
Jane’s testimony is needed,” Tony Spontana, a spokesman for the Indonesian
attorney general, wrote in a text message shortly after the executions were
carried out. “Eight people were executed, but not Mary Jane,” he wrote.
Ms. Veloso’s family maintains that she was duped by a drug syndicate into
flying to Indonesia in 2010 with more than 5 pounds of heroin hidden in a
suitcase. President Benigno Aquino III of the Philippines had repeatedly
appealed for her to be spared. The woman who surrendered to the Philippine
police on Tuesday was identified as one of those who recruited Ms. Veloso.
Relatives and friends of the condemned paid them final visits on Tuesday, but
were not allowed by the Indonesian authorities to witness the executions.
Shortly after midnight Tuesday, mourners in the port town of Cilacap, which
is the access point to the prison island, held a candlelight vigil for the
condemned prisoners that was televised.
The mass execution was the second in Indonesia this year. In January, five
foreign drug convicts and one Indonesian convicted of murder were shot by
firing squads on the island.
On Saturday, the attorney general’s office gave 72 hours’ notice to the
latest group of condemned prisoners, their legal teams and their respective
embassies that the executions would be carried out.
On Monday, an Australian prisoner, Andrew Chan, married his Indonesian
fiancée in a small wedding ceremony at the prison.