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Govt waits for Philippine court process before execution
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Arrested: Maria Kristina Sergio (center), the woman who allegedly recruited convicted Filipina drug trafficker Mary Jane Veloso by giving her a bag that contained the heroin found by police at the Yogyakarta airport in Indonesia, is escorted by Philippine officials after a press conference at the Camp Crame Police headquarters in suburban Quezon city, north of Manila, in the Philippines. Veloso was granted a stay of execution because her alleged boss had been arrested and Philippine authorities requested Indonesian assistance in pursuing the case. (AP/Aaron Favila)
T
he Indonesian government has said that it would not carry out the execution of Filipina death-row inmate Mary Jane Veloso until a court case in the Philippines, in which she is implicated as a victim of human trafficking, had been ruled on.
"We are waiting for the ongoing court process in the Philippines to be finished. There is a trial of a trafficking case involving her [as a victim]," Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly told reporters on Tuesday.
The government would respect the request from the Philippine court for Veloso to testify as a witness in the ongoing trial of her alleged trafficker, Yasonna said. However, since Veloso was forbidden from traveling to the Philippines due to her current status as a convicted drug smuggler, the government would only allow her make a written testimony, he added.
The Philippine court made the request under the ASEAN mutual legal assistance treaty, signed by Southeast Asian countries to fight transnational crimes in the region. The treaty obliges Indonesia to provide Veloso as a witness in the human trafficking court case.
Veloso was spared from execution in April last year after Maria Kristina Sergio, Veloso's alleged trafficker, came forward in her home country to admit that she had duped Veloso into smuggling drugs into Indonesia. Veloso was also excluded from the third round of executions in July. (dan)
