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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.

CHINA HEARS DEATH ROW DEFENSE BY VIDEO FOR FIRST TIME

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April 25, 2008: China's top court interrogated a death penalty defendant via a video link for the first time since a key legal reform aimed at cutting wrongful executions, Xinhua news agency said.

The reform, prompted by public outcries over a series of high-profile and wrong death sentences in recent years, had nevertheless greatly increased the workload of the top court, Chinese media have said.

"The Supreme People's Court judges have had to travel to places across the country to meet the defendants. It is both time-consuming and costly," Xinhua quoted an unnamed official from the top court as saying.

The top court questioned Jiang Huaquan, sentenced to death for drug trafficking in the southeastern province of Fujian, from Beijing through a video link, Xinhua said. "Distance interrogation can not only ensure face-to-face communication but also ... boost efficiency of the final review work maximally," the official said.

The questioning process would be recorded and judges would still travel to detention centres to personally meet defendants when necessary, the official said.

Source: Reuters, 25/04/2008
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