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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.

Sudan: nine men executed

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April 13, 2009: Sudanese authorities executed nine men from Darfur for murder, state media and a police source said.

The state news agency SUNA later confirmed the men were hanged at Kober prison in Khartoum and named them.

The decapitated body of newspaper editor, Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed, was found on a dirt road in Khartoum in September 2006. The men were found guilty in November 2007.

Ahmed was a journalist and owner of the Arabic-language al-Wifaq newspaper.

During the trial the lead police investigator, Abdul Rahim Ahmed Abdul Rahim, said the defendants' motives were "political, ethnic and financial".

Abdul Rahim said the defendants had been infuriated by an article in Taha's paper. A defence lawyer said the article had played down reports about rape in Darfur and used unflattering language to describe Darfurian women.

Source: Reuters, 13/04/2009
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