Filtered By: Topstories
News

Palace leaves fate of ex-NBI exec tagged in Catanduanes shabu lab to court


Malacañang on Wednesday distanced itself from the indictment of a former official of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in connection with the shabu laboratory discovered by authorities in Catanduanes in November 2016.

Senior Deputy Executive Secretary Menardo Guevarra said the drug case involving lawyer Augusto Eric Isidoro, the head of the NBI anti-illegal drugs unit during the time of former Justice secretary and now detained Senator Leila De Lima, should be left to the prosecutors and the courts to handle.

Isidoro surrendered to the NBI on March 20 after the Virac Regional Trial Court Branch 43 issued an arrest warrant against him.

Isidoro allegedly owns the lot where the shabu lab, said to be the biggest one discovered in the country so far, was built.

But the basis for Isidoro’s indictment was not immediately clear as the Department of Justice, which charged him and several others over the shabu lab, has not released to the media a copy of the resolution detailing its findings.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II has already asked the Supreme Court to transfer the trial of the case to a court in Makati City or Quezon City, citing the motion for inhibition filed by his prosecutors.

Judge Lelu Contreras allegedly could not handle the case with the required neutrality due to her actions surrounding the release of a search warrant for the then-suspected drug laboratory, according to the prosecution's motion filed on March 21.

The motion said the search warrant was issued after a trip to the town mayor's house as regards a no-building permit certification for the warehouse, and an appearance of the judge herself -- together with the mayor and the wife of Isidoro -- at the property, which visibly housed drug lab equipment. —ALG, GMA News

LOADING CONTENT