Indonesia prepares to transfer Philippines drug convict for execution

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia is preparing to move a Filipina death row inmate for execution after she lost her appeal in the Supreme Court earlier this week, the attorney general's spokesman said on Friday. The planned executions of Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso and nine other mostly foreign drug traffickers has drawn international criticism after repeated pleas for mercy from the United Nations and various governments have gone unheeded by President Joko Widodo. Veloso will be moved from the city of Yogyakarta to the maximum security prison on Nusakambangan Island in Central Java, where the rest of the group awaits execution by firing squad. "We can say that (Veloso's) case is done," the attorney general's spokesman Tony Spontana told reporters. "There will be preparations to move her soon because the plan to execute all (10 convicts) at once hasn't changed." The attorney general's office has yet to announce a date for the executions. Four other foreign nationals in the group have also lodged last-minute appeals against their death sentences, forcing the attorney general to hold off on the executions until all legal processes are seen through. Two Australian prisoners are among those appealing their sentences. The Australian government has been pursuing an eleventh-hour campaign to save their lives, but Widodo has refused to budge, ramping up diplomatic tensions between the neighbours. Indonesia has harsh penalties for drug trafficking and resumed executions in 2013 after a five-year gap. (Reporting by Gayatri Suroyo; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)