A woman from the Philippines who spent nearly 15 years on death row in Indonesia and was almost executed by firing squad has finally returned home.
Mary Jane Veloso was sentenced to death in 2010 after she was found carrying 2.6 kg (5.7 lb) of heroin through an Indonesian airport.
But the 39-year-old mother of two has always maintained she was tricked into carrying drugs.
She was flown back to Manila on Wednesday, after the two governments reached an agreement allowing her to return to her home country.
“This is a new life for me and I will have a new beginning in the Philippines,” she said in a press conference, adding that she wanted to spend Christmas with her family.
“I have to go home because I have family there, and my children are waiting for me.”
While the agreement stipulates that Veloso will return as a prisoner, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos could grant her a reprieve. She is now being held in the country's main women's prison in the Metro Manila area.
Veloso was arrested in April 2010 at Yogyakarta Airport.
She said that she was convinced by the daughter of one of her godfathers to travel to Indonesia to start a new job as a maid.
She claimed the woman's male friends gave her new clothes and a new bag, and she was unaware there was heroin in them.
She was scheduled to face the firing squad in 2015, however Benigno Aquino III, who was president of the Philippines at the time, obtained a last-minute reprieve from her death sentence after the woman suspected of recruiting was arrested and tried on human trafficking charges. Veloso was appointed as a prosecution witness in that case.
The reprieve was so late that many newspapers in the Philippines went to print with front pages and headlines suggesting it would happen.
Veloso's case aroused widespread public sympathy in the Philippines, which does not apply the death penalty.
Her circumstances were familiar to many in the Philippines, where it is common for women to escape poverty by seeking work abroad as domestic helpers.
As she left the prison heading to the airport, she said: “I bring with me a lot of things, such as the guitar, books, and knitting… Even this shirt I am wearing was given to me by my friends.”
Her transfer comes a few days after the remaining five members The notorious “Bali Nine” drug gang has returned home After spending nearly 20 years in Indonesian prisons.
