De Lima asks Muntinlupa court to grant demurrer to evidence

The camp of former Senator Leila de Lima has filed a demurrer to evidence before a Muntinlupa court, which will effectively dismiss her remaining drug case if her plea is granted.

In a 52-page motion filed Wednesday, they asked the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court (RTC)-Branch 206 to acquit and declare her not guilty for failure of the prosecution to prove her guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

“[T]he prosecution has not only failed to present sufficient evidence that would sustain a judgment of conviction beyond reasonable doubt, it has more so failed to present strong evidence of the Accused’s guilt,” the demurrer read.

De Lima’s camp noted that almost all the important evidence of the prosecution was presented during her bail hearing. They said that the court had declared that the prosecution’s evidence was unable to prove her alleged complicity in the drug case when it granted her application for bail.

Since then, two inmate witnesses were presented by the prosecution, according to her camp.

“Being criminal convicts, the same principle on the unreliability and untrustworthiness of their testimony as applied by the Honorable Court in its… order to the bail testimonies of their co-inmates at the New Bilibid Prison is likewise applicable to them,” they said.

Further, they stressed that one of the prosecution’s witnesses, Rodolfo Magleo, approached De Lima during a hearing with a letter containing his recantation. Aside from Magleo, fellow witness Nonilo Arile also recanted his testimony.

Magleo previously claimed before lawmakers that big-time drug lords in the New Bilibid Prison were giving commissions to De Lima during her term as Justice secretary.

Meanwhile, Arile accused De Lima of involvement in the drug trade to supposedly fund her senatorial campaign in the 2016 elections.

De Lima’s camp also said that the prosecution recycled the testimonies of some individuals who were presented in De Lima’s other drug cases where she had been acquitted.

The former senator was detained in Camp Crame in February 2017 over drug allegations. She was freed on bail in November 2023.

Her first acquittal came in February 2021 when the Muntinlupa City RTC-Branch 205 junked one of her three cases.

On May 12, the Muntinlupa RTC Branch 204 acquitted De Lima and Ronnie Dayan, her co-accused and former bodyguard, of an illegal drug trading charge on the ground of reasonable doubt. — VDV, GMA Integrated News