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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.

Sri Lanka | Authorities to take strict decisions on prisoners joining strikes

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Authorities to take strict decisions on prisoners joining strikes

The Department of Prisons has decided not to consider any prisoner who joins strikes standing on the roofs of prisons and causing damage to property, for any pardon granted by the government.

Prison media spokesman Chandana Ekanayake stated that no prisoner who threatens the security of prisons will be given the opportunity to be granted a pardon or relax the sentence.


Inmates at Welikada and Mahara prisons are on a hunger strike demanding that the death penalty be commuted to life imprisonment.

The Department of Prisons said about 25 inmates are currently on the roof of the Welikada Prison.


Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s decision to pardon former Member of Parliament Duminda Silva, who was sentenced to death in 2016 for the murder of another MP, has triggered the protests form the other death row prisoners.

Meanwhile, 4 inmates have escaped from a cell in the Kurunegala court premises. 

Prison media spokesman Chandana Ekanayake stated that one inmate has been arrested.

Source: colombopage.com, Staff, June 30, 2021


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Sri Lanka
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