Philippine senator charged with accepting drug-linked bribes
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines’ former justice secretary, a senator and prominent critic of President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly anti-drug crackdown, was charged Friday by prosecutors accusing her of receiving bribes from detained drug lords.
Sen. Leila de Lima denied the charges and characterized the case as “political persecution.” When she was a top human rights official, de Lima tried unsuccessfully to have Duterte prosecuted when he was still a city mayor for unlawful deaths occurring during his deadly anti-drug crackdown.
Duterte expanded the crackdown nationwide after becoming president in June, and de Lima has continued to criticize him since she became a senator last year.
Thousands of mostly suspected drug users and small-time drug peddlers have died since then, and human rights groups have urged independent investigations of whether some of those killed were victims of state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings. Duterte and other officials say those killed by policemen fought back and the government will never countenance unlawful killings.