Witness resumes testimony vs. De Lima in drug case before Muntinlupa court

A witness against detained Senator Leila de Lima on Tuesday resumed his testimony in the drug case filed against the lawmaker before a Muntinlupa court.

Joel Capones, a convict from the New Bilibid Prison and commander of the Sigue Sigue Sputnik Gang, has accused De Lima of receiving money from the illegal drug trade when she was justice secretary. On Tuesday, he underwent cross examination by the defense.

“In his testimony, (Capones said he) delivered first the money to Jaybee Sebastian, the P1.4 million, and when the senator then Secretary of Justice arrived, Jaybee Sebastian handed the money to Secretary De Lima. That is part of the testimony,” lead prosecutor Ramoncito Bienvenido Ocampo Jr. told reporters after Tuesday's hearing at the Muntinlupa City Regional Trial Court Branch 256.

“His testimony is very clear as far as we're concerned, we leave it to the court for its decision on our evidence as far as the testimony of Joel Capones [is concerned],” he added.

Sebastian, an NBP convict like Capones, had testified before a House inquiry in 2016 that he gave then Justice secretary De Lima a total of P10-million "drug money," once personally but mostly through her former close-in security Joenel Sanchez. Sebastian has since passed away, according to prison authorities.

At the time, De Lima had claimed Sebastian was “pressured” by the authorities to pin her down in the ongoing congressional hearing.

On Tuesday, the prosecution said it will be asking the court for a redirect examination of Capones to "clarify" what it claimed were "misleading questions" during the cross examination.

The hearings before the Muntinlupa RTC will resume on April 16.

De Lima had earlier opposed Capones' application for parole or executive clemency, citing his confession on his participation in the illegal drug trade inside the NBP.

He is currently detained in a facility of the Philippine Marines in Taguig City.

De Lima, meanwhile, has been detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Quezon City since February 24, 2017 over allegations that she allowed the illegal drug trade to proliferate inside the NBP during her term as justice secretary.

Her alleged complicity in the sale of illegal drugs was supposedly in exchange for funds for her senatorial campaign in 2016, a charge she has repeatedly denied and claimed to have been fabricated by the Duterte administration.

She has earlier been acquitted in one of her three drug cases. -Virgil Lopez/MDM, GMA News