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Indonesia | 14 years on death row: Timeline of Mary Jane Veloso’s ordeal and fight for justice

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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.

NIGERIA. SIX SHARIAH CONVICTS AWAIT STONING DEATH IN BAUCHI

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February 15, 2008: six people convicted by Islamic Shariah courts in a northern Nigerian state are awaiting death by stoning, while 46 others are waiting for amputation, the official News Agency of Nigeria reported.

The men on death row in Bauchi state include a 52 year old sentenced in 2004 for getting his teenage step-daughter pregnant and another who was sentenced in 2002 for having sex 13 times with his friend's wife, the agency said.

The report did not say how many people were facing such penalties in 11 other northern Nigerian states that have criminal courts using Shariah law. Such data is not collated centrally.

The sentences have not been executed because the state government is yet to ratify them, the news agency said, quoting the acting secretary of the Bauchi state Sharia Consultative Council, Ishiaku Tijjani. Bauchi is one of 12 states in Nigeria's mainly Islamic north that adopted a harsh sharia-based criminal code eight years ago.

Sources: Reuters, 15/02/2008
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