HRW: Authorities must free De Lima after Espinosa turnaround

New York-based Human Rights Watch on Friday said Philippine authorities should release  Senator Leila de Lima from detention after self-confessed drug dealer Kerwin Espinosa has withdrawn his allegations against her.

In a statement, HRW Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson also said that  the supposed trumped-up charges against the senator should also be dismissed.

“Espinosa’s retraction of allegations against Senator Leila de Lima should end the senator’s five-year ordeal in police detention,” he said.

“Authorities should release her immediately and dismiss the trumped-up charges that were the basis for her arrest in February 2017,” he added.

In a counter-affidavit subscribed before the Department of Justice (DOJ) Thursday,  Espinosa disowned his sworn statements during the Senate joint committee hearings on the killing of his father Mayor Rolando Espinosa, Sr.

According to him , he was “coerced, pressured, intimidated and seriously threatened” by the police to implicate De Lima.

For the HRW, Espinosa’s recantation revealed that the Duterte administration supposedly manipulated the criminal justice system in the country against a senator who was a critic of its controversial “drug war.”

“Espinosa's revelation exposes how the Duterte administration manipulated the Philippines’ criminal justice system against a sitting senator who was critical of the ‘war on drugs’ and had sought the truth about thousands of killings,” Robertson said.

“This should compel the international community to pursue accountability against President Duterte and those complicit in the ‘drug war violence’,” he added.

Prosecutor General Benedicto Malcontento, however, said Espinosa's retraction has no bearing on the cases lodged against De Lima.

Malcontento pointed out that Espinosa is not a witness in the case against De Lima. —LBG, GMA News