A court in the Philippines has dismissed one of two remaining drugs charges against Leila de Lima, a former senator and outspoken critic of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte.
Leila de Lima was arrested in 2017 and accused of taking drug money just a few months after announcing a Senate investigation into Duterte’s so-called “war on drugs”, which rights groups say left thousands of mostly poor, young men dead.
De Lima, now 63, and another defendant “are hereby acquitted” of the charges, said a written copy of the ruling released on Friday by regional trial court judge Abraham Alcantara. Her lawyer also confirmed the acquittal.
The former senator, who is being held in detention at the National Police Headquarters, originally faced three charges but was cleared of one of the others in 2021.
Amnesty International said Friday’s decision was “long overdue”.
“We urge the authorities to also quash the remaining drug case and to ensure that her application for temporary freedom in this pending case is processed speedily and fairly,” interim Deputy Regional Director for Research Montse Ferrer said in a statement. “The authorities must not delay her release any longer and allow her to be reunited with her family, friends and supporters after six long years.”
Key witnesses began retracting testimony they had made against de Lima, as Duterte’s term in office came to an end.
Last April, self-confessed druglord Kerwin Espinosa issued an affidavit and apology saying that his statements against de Lima were the result of “pressure, coercion, intimidation and serious threats to his life and his family”.
Later, prosecution witness Rafael Ragos, who was an officer-in-charge of the Bureau of Corrections in 2012, also retracted earlier court testimony in which he said he had delivered money from drug lords to de Lima. Ragos claimed that his testimony was “false” and coerced by Duterte’s justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre.
Following that retraction, de Lima’s defence team petitioned for bail but the court has yet to rule on the application. A previous effort was denied in June 2020.
In February, de Lima’s supporters called on current president Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who was elected a year ago, to release her.
De Lima first angered Duterte in 2009 when she was head of the Philippines human rights commission and investigated drug-related killings in the southern city of Davao, where Duterte was mayor.
When he became president in 2016 and bodies of alleged drug dealers began turning up on the street, de Lima opened a Senate investigation into the ‘drug war’, which she felt resembled the operations of the so-called Davao Death Squad.
Duterte’s “drug war” is now the subject of an International Criminal Court investigation into possible “crimes against humanity”.
A United Nations report in 2021 found that 8,663 people had been killed in anti-drug operations but the Human Rights Commission of the Philippines and local human rights groups say the toll could be as much as three times higher.
