{"id":11723,"date":"2025-07-15T00:55:25","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T23:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=11723"},"modified":"2025-07-14T15:26:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T14:26:03","slug":"leila-de-lima-acquitted-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/leila-de-lima-acquitted-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Leila de Lima acquitted again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former senator and incoming Mamamayang Liberal (ML) Representative Leila de Lima has been acquitted<\/a> again on June 27, 2025, by the Muntinlupa City Regional Trial Court (RTC) of drug charges due to reasonable doubt. The case, filed<\/a> during former President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s term, accused De Lima and her former aide Ronnie Dayan of involvement in illegal drug trading at New Bilibid Prison.<\/p>\n

De Lima spent more than six years in prison until her release<\/a> on bail on November 13, 2023. On June 24, 2024, the Muntinlupa Regional Court acquitted<\/a> her of the third and final charge of conspiracy to traffic drugs. The two other charges were quashed<\/a> in May 2023 and April 2022 respectively.<\/p>\n

However, the Court of Appeals (CA) voided<\/a> in May 2025 that decision from 2023, citing insufficient explanation and reliance on the recanted testimony of former Bureau of Corrections officer Rafael Ragos. The CA remanded<\/a> the case for a more thorough ruling.<\/p>\n

In the new decision dated June 27, 2025, Judge Abraham Joseph Alcantara reaffirmed<\/a> the acquittal, again citing Ragos\u2019 recantation as creating reasonable doubt. The court noted<\/a> that while illegal drug activity at the prison was proven, no solid evidence linked De Lima and Dayan in conspiracy with those involved.<\/p>\n

De Lima, now elected<\/a> as a congress representative, will join the House prosecution team in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo \u00a9 leiladelima.ph\/gallery\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former senator and incoming Mamamayang Liberal (ML) Representative Leila de Lima has been acquitted again on June 27, 2025, by the Muntinlupa City Regional Trial Court (RTC) of drug charges due to reasonable doubt. The case, filed during former President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s term, accused De Lima and her former aide Ronnie Dayan of involvement in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7841,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73,63,58,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aktuelles-en","category-human-rights-defenders","category-human-rights-news","category-internal-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11723"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11835,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11723\/revisions\/11835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}