China executes Filipinos for drug trafficking
Three convicted Filipinos executed despite Manila saying it could prove a drug syndicate took advantage of them.
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| The accused met their families for the last time on Wednesday before being put to death by lethal injection [Reuters] |
Three Filipinos found guilty of drug trafficking have been executed in China, the Philippine vice president has said.
“I just want to inform you that our three compatriots have been executed,” Jejomar Binay said on Wednesday, citing information from the Philippine foreign affairs ministry.
Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, 32, and Ramon Credo, 42, met their families for the last time early on Wednesday before they were put to death by lethal injection in Xiamen, said Philippine Consul Noel Novicio.
Elizabeth Batain, 38, was allowed to meet with her relatives hours ahead of her execution in Shenzhen, Novicio said.
The three were not aware they would be executed on Wednesday although their sentences were pronounced early in the day, Novicio said.
China normally does not announce executions. It is the first time that Filipino nationals have been executed in China.
‘No mercy’
“They already gave us (her) things. It’s too much, they gave us only one hour (with her). They have no mercy,” Ordinario-Villanueva’s sister, Maylene Ordinario, said in a text message from Xiamen to her family in the Philippines.
She said that her sister was blessed by a priest and “she said she wants to be forgiven for all her sins but she insisted that she was a victim.”
“She asked us to take care of her children, to take care of each other and to help one another. I have not accepted what will happen. We are forcing ourselves to accept it but I can’t,” she told Manila radio station DZBB.
The three were arrested separately in 2008 carrying packages containing at least 3.6 kilograms of heroin. They were convicted and sentenced in 2009.
In its appeals for clemency, which included three letters by Benigno Aquino III, the Filipino president, to his Chinese counterpart and a February visit to Beijing by the vice president that prompted China to postpone the
executions by a month, the government said it was able to prove that a drug syndicate took advantage of the Filipinos.
It said that Philippine authorities succeeded in identifying and arresting some members of the syndicate.
Amnesty International says China is the world’s biggest executioner, with thousands of convicts killed every year.
The Philippines has abolished the death penalty.