Senator Leila de Lima started receiving proceeds from illegal drug operations in the New Bilibid Prison as early as 2011 in preparation for her Senate run, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II alleged Monday.
Aguirre said convicted kidnapper Jaybee Sebastian instructed gang leaders and allied drug lords to sell 20 to 50 kilos of shabu every month and remit part of the proceeds to De Lima, who at that time seemed to be eyeing a Senate run in 2013.
To prove his point, Aguirre quoted a witness as saying that De Lima, his predecessor in the Department of Justice (DOJ), made visits to Sebastian's luxurious quarters inside the NBP.
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Photo Courtesy of Inquirer |
The Department of Justice has at least 30 witnesses, including National Bureau of Investigation personnel and high-profile inmates, who agreed to testify on De Lima's alleged complicity in the drug operations inside the NBP while she was justice chief.
The inmates include convicted armed robber Herbert Colangco, who allegedly gave De Lima P3 million a month, and convicted kidnapper Noel Martinez.
Aguirre said he tried to get Sebastian on the government's side but the inmate allegedly hoodwinked them.
De Lima previously denounced insinuations linking her to Sebastian or "to any other convicted or suspected drug lord or operator now or in the past."
"I categorically deny any insinuation of me extending any protection or accommodation to any criminal," the senator said in a statement on July 21 after Solicitor General Jose Calida showed a photo of her and Sebastian.
De Lima, however, admitted she and other members of the DOJ's management committee mingled with some inmates during certain activities as part of the reformatory program of Bureau of Corrections, which supervises the NBP.
Source: GMA Network
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