MANILA, Philippines — The case of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina on death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking, has spanned over a decade and remains one of the most high-profile legal battles involving an overseas Filipino worker. Veloso was arrested on April 25, 2010, at Adisucipto International Airport in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, after she was found in possession of more than 2.6 kilograms of heroin. She was sentenced to death in October – just six months after her arrest. Indonesia’s Supreme Court upheld the penalty in May 2011.
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Drug mule Rush gives first TV interview
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Published
Tuesday, 19 February , 2008 17:28:00
MARK COLVIN: One of the Bali Nine has spoken publicly for the first time on the electronic media about his situation and his hopes of being able to leave a Bali jail, despite that fact that he faces the death penalty.
Scott Rush, who was arrested on drug trafficking charges in Indonesia, has spoken to SBS Television from his prison cell.
He says he never realised the implications that his actions could have, or that it was even possible to be executed for smuggling heroin.
Donna Field reports.
DONNA FIELD: These are dark days for Scott Rush. The 22-year-old from Brisbane is far from home in a foreign prison, with little to think of but impending death at the hands of an Indonesian executioner.
He was originally sentenced to life in prison for his role in an attempt to smuggle eight kilograms of heroin from Indonesia to Australia in 2005.
He appealed, but rather than being shortened, his sentence was increased to death.
Scott Rush spoke to SBS Television's "Cutting Edge" program about that decision
SCOTT RUSH: I just thought it was bullshit. I mean, the fact, like, that any of us get the death penalty is bullshit. I mean …
JOURNALIST: Does that torment you, the thought of dying?
SCOTT RUSH: Yeah, it does, it weighs on my mind every, pretty much every second of the day. I mean, I can't have a normal conversation like I used to be able to because of this. It's always in my mind.
DONNA FIELD: Five other members of the drug syndicate are also facing execution.
In his first interview since the death penalty was imposed, Scott Rush speaks of regret for his parents. And he explains why he became a drug mule.
SCOTT RUSH: I didn't have a concrete job at the time. I was, I was waiting to go to the air force. I mean, I think about this and sometimes and the answer changes in my own head. But, I …
JOURNALIST: But you'd never been overseas, had you?
SCOTT RUSH: No.
JOURNALIST: You didn't have a passport. So, what, you thought there was just a buck in it and see what happens, or?
SCOTT RUSH: Kind of, yeah. I mean, everyone likes a bit of adventure now and then.
DONNA FIELD: Scott Rush was a drug user, and during the trial he said that he was young and unworldly. He said it was threats against his family that forced him to carry the heroin that was strapped to his body when he was arrested at the Bali Airport.
In the SBS interview, he says the decision to join the Bali Nine never sat easily with him and he wasn't aware of what could go wrong.
SCOTT RUSH: Quite honestly, I didn't really want to come here, because I didn't, I didn't feel comfortable. I didn't know what I was risking. I didn't know there was a death penalty. I didn't know anything about Bali, really.
DONNA FIELD: Scott Rush still hopes to be spared the firing squad, and eventually leave his Bali prison cell.
SCOTT RUSH: I feel that I will. I mean, if I've got any sort of instinct. Obviously, I'm hoping that I will, continuously thinking about it every day.
DONNA FIELD: Rush's last avenue of appeal is a Supreme Court review of his sentence. His family will also ask Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to make a plea to the Indonesian President for clemency.
Under Trump, there were 13 executions in his last six months as president. Biden must clear death row now to stop that and what Albert Camus described as the most cold-blooded premeditated murder. On Jan. 14, 2021, I stood in a small chamber in the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, while the federal government carried out an execution. Relegated to a spot 6 feet away from the gurney, I prayed with Corey Johnson, the “Gentle Giant” as he was known on death row. He was one of the last of 13 people executed under then-President Donald Trump, who carried out an unprecedented killing spree during the final six months of his presidency.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma panel on Friday rejected a plea for clemency for a man convicted of torturing and killing a 10-year-old girl as part of a cannibalistic fantasy, paving the way for him to become the 25th and final person executed in the U.S. this year. Three members of Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board voted unanimously against clemency for Kevin Ray Underwood, who is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday, his 45th birthday. An Indiana man, Joseph Corcoran, is set to die Wednesday for killing four men in 1997 in what would be the Hoosier State’s first execution in 15 years.
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Filipino death row inmate Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso knelt to pray when officers came to take her to an execution site in May 2015, just a few feet away from her isolation cell on an Indonesian prison island, where a 13-member firing squad was waiting. While she prayed, the Philippines government was wrapping up a lengthy legal battle over her fate. Veloso’s life was ultimately spared — temporarily — by Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office, which issued a stay of execution shortly before Veloso was to be executed with eight other death row inmates.
SYDNEY, Australia -- The five remaining members of the Australian "Bali Nine" drug ring flew home Sunday after 19 years in jail in Indonesia, ending a saga that had frayed relations between the two countries. Indonesian police arrested the nine Australians in 2005, convicting them of attempting to smuggle more than eight kilograms (18 pounds) of heroin off the holiday island of Bali. The case drew global attention to Indonesia's unforgiving drug laws, with two of the gang executed by firing squad, while the others served hefty prison sentences.
Ali Khaleqi Farghani, a 22-year-old prisoner convicted of premeditated murder, was executed on his birthday in Mashhad Central Prison on Thursday, December 5, 2024. According to a report received by the Hengaw Organization, he had been arrested two years ago on charges of premeditated murder and was subsequently sentenced to two counts of the death penalty.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic and is pardoning 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes. It’s the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. The commutations announced Thursday are for people who have served out home confinement sentences for at least one year after they were released. Prisons were uniquely bad for spreading the virus and some inmates were released in part to stop the spread. At one point, 1 in 5 prisoners had COVID-19, according to a tally kept by The Associated Press.
Jakarta, Dec 14 (IANS) Indonesian Minister of Law Supratman Andi Agtas has said that President Prabowo Subianto would grant amnesty to several categories of prisoners, including drug users and prisoners with long-term illnesses. According to Supratman, the move aims to reduce overcapacity in correctional facilities while addressing humanitarian concerns, Xinhua news agency reported. Prisoners suffering from chronic illnesses like HIV/AIDS and individuals with mental disorders are among those eligible.
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WPTA) - A local pastor has been arranging protests against the state’s decision to continue with the upcoming execution of Joseph Corcoran for the past couple weekends. Anna Lisa Gross is a co-pastor at Beacon Heights here in Fort Wayne and has been working with multiple churches to protest the execution of Corcoran. “Our community has failed him more than one time, and now to kill him would do nothing,” says Gross.
A Filipina drug convict on death row in Indonesia told AFP from prison Friday that her planned transfer was a "miracle", in her first interview since Manila and Jakarta signed an agreement last week to repatriate her. Mother of two Mary Jane Veloso, 39, was arrested and sentenced to death in 2010 after the suitcase she was carrying was found to be lined with 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin, in a case that sparked uproar in the Philippines. Both she and her supporters claim she was duped by an international drug syndicate, and in 2015, she narrowly escaped execution after her suspected recruiter was arrested.
Zephen Xaver text a friend from the bank parking lot, saying: ’Watch for me on the news’ A prison guard trainee who executed five women inside a Florida bank has been sentenced to death. Zephen Xaver, 27, appeared to gulp but otherwise showed no emotion as Judge Angela Cowden pronounced the sentence at the Highlands County Courthouse in Sebring. At gunpoint, Xaver ordered his victims, all women, to lie on the floor and then shot each the head as they begged for mercy.
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