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A Philippine woman who spent nearly 15 years on death row in Indonesia and was nearly executed by firing squad is finally home.
Mary Jane Veloso was sentenced to death in 2010 after she was found transporting 2.6 kg (5.7 pounds) of heroin at an airport in Indonesia.
But the 39-year-old mother of two has always maintained that she was tricked into carrying the drugs.
She was brought back to Manila on Wednesday, after the two governments reached an agreement allowing her to return home.
“This is a new life for me and I will have a new beginning in the Philippines,” he said at a news conference, adding that he wanted to spend Christmas with his family.
“I have to go home because I have a family there, I have my children waiting for me.”
While the agreement calls for Veloso to return as a prisoner, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos could grant her a pardon. She is now detained in the country’s main women’s prison, in Metro Manila.
Veloso was arrested in April 2010 at Yogyakarta airport.
She said the daughter of one of her godparents convinced her to travel to Indonesia to start a new job as a maid.
He claimed the woman’s male friends gave her new clothes and a new bag, which she didn’t know had heroin sewn into it.
He was due to face the firing squad in 2015, but Benigno Aquino III, who was president of the Philippines at the time, obtained a last-minute pardon for her after the woman suspected of recruiting her was arrested and tried for human trafficking. Veloso was named a prosecution witness in that case.
His pardon came so late that several Philippine newspapers published front pages and headlines reporting what happened.
Ms. Veloso’s case generated widespread public sympathy in the Philippines, where the death penalty does not exist.
Her circumstances were familiar to many in the Philippines, where it is common for women to escape poverty by seeking work abroad as domestic workers.
“I bring a lot of things, like a guitar, books, fabrics… even this T-shirt I’m wearing was given to me by my friends,” she said as she left the prison heading to the airport.
His transfer comes just days after the five remaining members of The infamous “Bali Nine” drug ring returned home after serving almost 20 years in Indonesian prisons.
