Judge inhibits from cyber libel case vs Maria Ressa after getting death threat

The Makati judge handling the second cyber libel charge against Rappler CEO Maria Ressa has inhibited from the case after receiving a death threat.

Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 147 Acting Presiding Judge Maria Amifaith Fider-Reyes said she received an email on December 4 in which the sender asked her to dismiss the supposedly "moot" case.

"Ang tagal na din ng article nay an (sic) wala bas syang (sic) karapatan magpahayag ng saloobin niya? Please ngayon lang. Kasi kung hindi patawad po talaga. Ngayon pa lang ako makakapatay ng tao. hahagilapin ko kayo. Salamat po," the judge quoted the email as saying. 

Reyes said she received another email from the same person on December 24 thanking her for granting Ressa's motion to travel.

The judge said she found valid reasons to recuse herself from the case.

"To avoid the impression that the decisions of this Judge are influenced or affected by the correspondence received from this e-mail address, the Judge finds just reasons to inhibit from this case," she wrote in an order dated January 5.

She also "severely reprimanded" the email sender for "lack of respect to the judicial processes."

The case will be raffled to another judge following her inhibition.

In a statement, Ressa said she doubts the threat came from any of her supporters.

"Anyone who knows me knows that I would never condone nor tolerate attempts to manipulate the rule of law. We call it out every day despite the impunity we see around us," she said.

"Having received hate messages and death threats myself, I condemn anyone who would do this and empathize with those who have to deal with it," she added.

Ressa's lawyer, former Supreme Court (SC) spokesperson Theodore Te, said he would not want to second guess the judge's reasons for inhibition.

But he said "perhaps the judge could have, before inhibiting, asked the SC to investigate the source of the threat," adding that over 50 lawyers, including prosecutors and judges, have been killed since 2016.

Ressa, who was convicted of cyber libel last June, was charged a second time over a tweet where she posted screenshots of a 2002 newspaper article reporting businessman Wilfredo Keng's alleged links to crime.

Keng had also initiated the first cyber libel case against Ressa and former Rappler researcher Reynaldo Santos, Jr. over an article which cited an "intelligence report" saying the businessman was under surveillance for human trafficking and drug smuggling.

Ressa is appealing the first conviction and entered no plea in the second case during arraignment, prompting the court to enter a not-guilty plea on her behalf.

Her motion to dismiss the second case stands.—AOL, GMA News