TRAFFICKERS using Malaysia as an international drugs transit point are believed to have set up a Filipino maid facing imminent execution with the two Bali Nine organisers in a similar way to Sydney grandmother Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto.
Philippine authorities are planning last-minute efforts to try to save the life of Mary Jane Veloso, 30, who insists she was duped into carrying drugs in a suitcase from Kuala Lumpur to Indonesia and was sentenced to death in an Indonesian court in 2010.
Mrs Pinto Exposto, 52, who is facing execution if found guilty in Malaysia, also insists she was duped into carrying drugs concealed in a suitcase, in her case to Kuala Lumpur from Shanghai last year.
Malaysian police say traffickers have been increasingly using Kuala Lumpur as a transit point for drugs, mainly from China, that are destined for other countries.
The traffickers often con unsuspecting women to carry the drugs on international flights arriving and departing Kuala Lumpur, police say.
Last year Malaysian police arrested 32 people, 18 of them foreigners, for allegedly carrying drugs worth about $20 million through the Malaysian capital.
Amid growing support for Veloso in the Philippines, the country's Drug Enforcement Agency and national police have reopened investigations into the circumstances of Veloso carrying 2.6 kilograms of heroin from Kuala Lumpur to Yogyakarta.
Investigators from both agencies visited her in the Wirogunan women's jail in Yogyakarta last week.
Veloso, a mother of two sons aged 12 and seven from an impoverished family who married at the age of 16, insists she travelled to Kuala Lumpur after being offered a house-keeping job but when she got there she was told by an acquaintance it was no longer available.
The acquaintance suggested she fly to Yogyakarta for a job there and bought her a suitcase for the trip.
A customs scanner revealed the drugs concealed in a secret compartment in the suitcase when she arrived on an AirAsia flight in Yogyakarta.
Omar Thik Lim, director of Customs at Malaysia's international airport, shows the bag allegedly containing drugs that was being carried by Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto when she was arrested on December 7, 2014.
Omar Thik Lim, director of Customs at Malaysia's international airport, shows the bag allegedly containing drugs that was being carried by Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto when she was arrested on December 7, 2014. Photo: supplied
"Mary Jane does not deserve to be executed, her two children do not deserve to lose their mother, over a crime she did not willingly commit," said Migrante International, a group that represents Philippine overseas workers.
Like Australia, the Philippines has made numerous appeals to Indonesian President Joko Widodo to stop the executions of 10 drug felons in Indonesia, including Bali Nine organisers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who on Monday lost their appeal to challenge their clemency rejection in the administrative court in Jakarta.
In late March Indonesia's Supreme Court rejected a review of Veloso's case despite her legal team saying that she had a strong case for her death sentence to be commuted.
The review application had delayed the executions because Indonesian authorities are planning to put all 10 before a firing squad at the same time.
Philippines Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario visited Veloso in jail on March 24, indicating that the government in Manila has made her case a diplomatic priority.
"Our embassy in Jakarta will meet with the lawyers of Mary Jane to consider all options," said Charles Jose, a spokesman for the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs. "This includes the ground for a second appeal."
Indonesian authorities say they are waiting for a confirmed plan to transfer Veloso to the Nusakambangan prison island, where Chan and Sukumaran are being held and where the executions will take place.
Mrs Pinto Exposto was arrested at Kuala Lumpur airport on December 7 with a suitcase allegedly containing 1.5 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, the drug known as ice.
She has told her lawyers she fell for an online romance scam and was then duped into carrying a suitcase she believed contained only clothes to Kuala Lumpur.
Mrs Pinto Exposto had an onward flight booked to Melbourne.
Drug trafficking carries a mandatory sentence of death by hanging upon conviction in Malaysia. Mrs Pinto Exposto is being held in jail pending her next court appearance in Kuala Lumpur on April 30.
Philippine authorities are planning last-minute efforts to try to save the life of Mary Jane Veloso, 30, who insists she was duped into carrying drugs in a suitcase from Kuala Lumpur to Indonesia and was sentenced to death in an Indonesian court in 2010.
Mrs Pinto Exposto, 52, who is facing execution if found guilty in Malaysia, also insists she was duped into carrying drugs concealed in a suitcase, in her case to Kuala Lumpur from Shanghai last year.
Malaysian police say traffickers have been increasingly using Kuala Lumpur as a transit point for drugs, mainly from China, that are destined for other countries.
The traffickers often con unsuspecting women to carry the drugs on international flights arriving and departing Kuala Lumpur, police say.
Last year Malaysian police arrested 32 people, 18 of them foreigners, for allegedly carrying drugs worth about $20 million through the Malaysian capital.
Amid growing support for Veloso in the Philippines, the country's Drug Enforcement Agency and national police have reopened investigations into the circumstances of Veloso carrying 2.6 kilograms of heroin from Kuala Lumpur to Yogyakarta.
Investigators from both agencies visited her in the Wirogunan women's jail in Yogyakarta last week.
Veloso, a mother of two sons aged 12 and seven from an impoverished family who married at the age of 16, insists she travelled to Kuala Lumpur after being offered a house-keeping job but when she got there she was told by an acquaintance it was no longer available.
The acquaintance suggested she fly to Yogyakarta for a job there and bought her a suitcase for the trip.
A customs scanner revealed the drugs concealed in a secret compartment in the suitcase when she arrived on an AirAsia flight in Yogyakarta.
Omar Thik Lim, director of Customs at Malaysia's international airport, shows the bag allegedly containing drugs that was being carried by Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto when she was arrested on December 7, 2014.
Omar Thik Lim, director of Customs at Malaysia's international airport, shows the bag allegedly containing drugs that was being carried by Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto when she was arrested on December 7, 2014. Photo: supplied
"Mary Jane does not deserve to be executed, her two children do not deserve to lose their mother, over a crime she did not willingly commit," said Migrante International, a group that represents Philippine overseas workers.
Like Australia, the Philippines has made numerous appeals to Indonesian President Joko Widodo to stop the executions of 10 drug felons in Indonesia, including Bali Nine organisers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who on Monday lost their appeal to challenge their clemency rejection in the administrative court in Jakarta.
In late March Indonesia's Supreme Court rejected a review of Veloso's case despite her legal team saying that she had a strong case for her death sentence to be commuted.
The review application had delayed the executions because Indonesian authorities are planning to put all 10 before a firing squad at the same time.
Philippines Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario visited Veloso in jail on March 24, indicating that the government in Manila has made her case a diplomatic priority.
"Our embassy in Jakarta will meet with the lawyers of Mary Jane to consider all options," said Charles Jose, a spokesman for the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs. "This includes the ground for a second appeal."
Indonesian authorities say they are waiting for a confirmed plan to transfer Veloso to the Nusakambangan prison island, where Chan and Sukumaran are being held and where the executions will take place.
Mrs Pinto Exposto was arrested at Kuala Lumpur airport on December 7 with a suitcase allegedly containing 1.5 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, the drug known as ice.
She has told her lawyers she fell for an online romance scam and was then duped into carrying a suitcase she believed contained only clothes to Kuala Lumpur.
Mrs Pinto Exposto had an onward flight booked to Melbourne.
Drug trafficking carries a mandatory sentence of death by hanging upon conviction in Malaysia. Mrs Pinto Exposto is being held in jail pending her next court appearance in Kuala Lumpur on April 30.
I ask you, Does Malaysia allow Stoning as a form of execution, ala Saudia Arabia?
Or does their method of killing make Malaysia more humane? I will speculate that the executioner enjoys his own drugs of choice - perhaps cigarettes or alcohol.
That they are legal does not make them safer than say - marijuana - a demonized drug in Malaysia and Thailand.
We have The Dark Ages in 2015, where picking your poison, your self medication - is mandated by those authorities who prefer only certain personal drugs of choice, and wield their Authority like a spiked club.
Abysmal
Posted by farang888 on April 7, 2015 22:51