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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Germany | Nazi guillotine used to kill 1,200 could go on display ‘to protect freedom of speech’
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A blood-stained guillotine used by an infamous executioner to kill 1,200 people in Nazi Germany should be put on public display, the man who rediscovered it has said. The grisly relic was operated by Johann Reichhart, believed to be the fastest executioner in history, and took just seconds to take somebody’s life with a blade weighing 30lbs and a wooden bench bleached from constant washing.
Journalist and author Ulrich Trebbin found it by accident at the Bavarian National Museum in Munich, announcing his discovery in 2014.
However, at the time, the Bavarian regional government concluded it should stay out of the public eye in case it offends the families of victims and attracts ghoulish attention.
However, Mr Trebbin said: “Based on that logic, all concentration camp memorial sites should be closed.”
An exhibition featuring the guillotine, coupled with an explanation of its history, would demonstrate how Adolf Hitler’s regime killed dissidents, criminals, anyone they classified as “asocial” and labourers deemed guilty of trivial crimes, he added.
Mr Trebbin added: “We have freedom of speech, the separation of powers and no death penalty.
“We can be proud of that and we have to protect it.”
The guillotine was built in 1855, many decades before the rise of the Third Reich, and was used in Munich Stadelheim prison to carry out 125 executions.
However, when the Nazis came into power in 1933, they commandeered the equipment and decapitated 1,200 people over the course of the next 12 years.
Shockingly, relatives of victims were ordered to pay for the cost of executions, with bodies then placed in shortened coffins, and frequently sent to anatomical departments.
All three had distributed leaflets calling for Hitler’s overthrow.
Mr Trebbin wrote: “As I stood in front of the guillotine they were killed with, their murder seemed more real and immediate to me than ever before.”
Declaring his “shame, pain and outrage”, he argued putting it on show would offer an important historical lesson to young people today, especially about the 12,000 death sentences handed by German civil courts during the Nazi era.
Reichhart, who was a Bavarian judicial executioner from 1924 to 1946, put a total of 3,165 people to death during the course of his career.
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)
In an ironic twist, after the end of the war, he worked for the US Government, executing Nazis sentenced by the allies.
In 1947, he was imprisoned and sentenced to two years in a labour camp, and to have half his assets confiscated.
During his trial, he said: "I have carried out death sentences in the firm conviction that I should serve the state with my work, and to comply with lawfully enacted laws. I never doubted the legality of what I was doing.”
On appeal, his sentence was reduced to 18 months and 30 percent of his assets. He died in 1972 at the age of 78.
* Hans Scholl (24), left on the photo below, his sister Sophie Scholl (21) and their friend Christoph Probst (24) were executed by the Nazis 80 years ago this month (February 22, 1943) for distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich. The three students were non-violent anti-Nazi political activists acting within the White Rose resistance group in Nazi Germany. They were tried and convicted of high treason in the Nazi People's Court presided by Judge Roland Freisler, and guillotined at 5:00 pm on the same day.
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.
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.
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.
HOUSTON (AP) — Prosecutors in Texas announced Friday that they will seek the death penalty against two Venezuelan men who are accused of killing a 12-year-old Houston girl after they had entered the U.S. illegally. The death of Jocelyn Nungaray was among several cases this year that became flashpoints in the debate over the nation’s immigration policies. Nungaray’s mother campaigned for President-elect Donald Trump, calling for better control of the border in the wake of her daughter’s death.
