Filipina who won a last-minute reprieve from the Indonesian firing squad in 2015 is to return home

Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina who was on death row in Indonesia, attends a press conference prior to her repatriation to the Philippines at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Indonesia on Dec. 17, 2024. (Tatan Syuflana / AP Photo)

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities were set to return a Filipina woman to the Philippines after midnight, who was on death row in Indonesia and was nearly executed by firing squad in 2015, under an arrangement between the two countries.

Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso -- who spent almost 15 years in an Indonesian prison for drug trafficking -- won a last-minute reprieve that will lead to her testimony exposing how a criminal syndicate duped her into being an unwitting accomplice and drug courier.

Veloso was moved late Sunday to a female prison in Indonesia's capital of Jakarta, from where she has been flown back to the Philippines. She was escorted to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on Tuesday night for a flight to Manila.

Her repatriation was made possible by a "practical arrangement" for the transfer of prisoners signed between the two countries on Dec. 6, after a longstanding request from Manila.

Veloso told a group of reporters outside the Pondok Bambu female prison in eastern Jakarta, that she was overwhelmed by a variety of emotions, before getting into the car that took her to the airport.

She thanked Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and his government for sending her back home to serve her sentence in her country, "So, I can be closer to my children and family."

"Thank you, Indonesia, I love Indonesia," Veloso said.

She said that she brought many souvenirs given by her Indonesian fellow inmates and friends, including a guitar, books, knittings and rosaries.

Veloso, who will turn 40 next month, was arrested in 2010 at an airport in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, where officials discovered about 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin hidden in her luggage. The single mother of two sons was convicted and sentenced to death.

Her case caused a public outcry in the Philippines. She traveled to Indonesia in 2010, where her recruiter, Maria Kristina Sergio, reportedly told her a job as a domestic worker awaited her. Sergio also allegedly provided the suitcase where the drugs were found.

In 2015, Indonesia moved Veloso to an island prison where she and eight other drug convicts were scheduled to be executed by firing squad despite objections from their home countries Australia, Brazil, France, Ghana and Nigeria.

Indonesia executed the eight but Veloso was granted a stay of execution because Sergio was arrested in the Philippines, just two days earlier.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major drug smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.

Indonesia's last executions of one of its citizens and three foreigners were carried out in July 2016.

About 530 people are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes, including 96 foreigners, the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections' data showed last month.

Five Australians who spent almost 20 years in Indonesian prisons for heroin trafficking returned to Australia Sunday under a deal struck between the Indonesian and Australian governments.

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Associated Press journalist Achmad Ibrahim in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.