Deal to target drug network, not the mule, saved Filipina's life

MANILA/JAKARTA (Reuters) - As the clocked ticked on Tuesday towards midnight, the hour when nine drug traffickers were expected to be executed on a high-security prison island in Indonesia, mandarins in the Philippines waited nervously for some word from Jakarta.

There never was a response to a last-ditch appeal their government had made to spare Filipina Mary Jane Veloso. But when news came that only eight of the convicts had in the end gone before the firing squad, there was jubilation in Manila.