NUPL worried about lack of updates on Veloso case
Two months since being spared the firing squad in Indonesia, Mary Jane Veloso and her family are back to being “clueless.”
Veloso’s lawyer Edre Olalia said on Wednesday that the family has not received updates on the status of the Filipino’s case in Indonesia since she was granted a temporary reprieve on April 28.
He said Veloso has been doing “fine” in jail, but has been eager to know the status of her case, including terms and conditions of the 11th-hour reprieve she was granted after her known recruiters Kristina Sergio and Julius Lacanilao surfaced.
Sergio, now facing multiple charges of illegal recruitment, estafa and human trafficking, has executed an affidavit saying Veloso had no knowledge that she was carrying 2.6 kilos of heroin in her luggage when she was arrested in Indonesia in April 2010.
Olalia’s legal team from the National Union of People’s Lawyers recently sent letters to the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Justice, the National Bureau of Investigation, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Philippine Embassy in Jakarta seeking updates on Veloso’s case.
The letters requested that the family and the legal team be “officially informed of the steps, if any, that you have taken regarding Mary Jane’s case.”
“The Philippine government agencies that were sent formal letters are quite stingy until now in officially giving family full, transparent and real time info or update. The family is again in the dark,” Olalia said on Wednesday.
“There is no initiative to apprise them what concrete and specific steps have been taken so far, if any,” he said.
The lawyer said the family seemed to be back to the situation before, where they had no information on the status of Veloso’s case.
“Ironically, the persons most entitled to such update or info — Mary Jane and family, are practically clueless, just like what happened in the past five years, except for bits of information here and there that public already knows,” Olalia said.
The lawyer said he just got in touch with Aprilina Siska, among Veloso’s Indonesian lawyers, who said “actually there is no update” on the case.
The Indonesian lawyer also relayed to Olalia that the Philippine Embassy in Jakarta was “still waiting from the Indonesian government to request the best time for the team of the Philippines to come to Indonesia and do their follow up investigation with Mary Jane.”
Cases against Veloso’s recruiters remain pending at the DOJ.
