Kerwin Espinosa recants all allegations vs De Lima, says lawyer

MANILA, April 29 ------ Self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa recanted all of his allegations against detained Sen. Leila de Lima, his counsel said Thursday. The retraction as well as an expression of apology are stated in Espinosa's counter-affidavit subscribed before the Department of Justice Thursday afternoon, lawyer Raymund Palad told ABS-CBN News. "Basically, binabawi niya or nire-recant niya whatever statements na sinabi niya kay Senator De Lima which implicated (the) senator sa illegal drug trade," said Palad.

Espinosa said in his counter-affidavit that his claims against De Lima, who has been detained since February 2017 over illegal drugs charges but which she dismissed as political persecution, are not true. He had claimed that he gave a total of P8 million in drug payoffs to De Lima when the latter was Justice Secretary, through her former driver, Ronnie Dayan. At a Senate hearing in 2016, Espinosa alleged that Dayan called him in August 2015 to solicit money for the campaign kitty of De Lima in exchange for protecting his drug dealings.

Espinosa was among the witnesses the government presented against De Lima, a vocal critic of President Rodrigo Duterte, during the Senate hearings in November and December 2016. "Any and all of his statements given during the Senate hearings, or in the form of sworn written affidavits, against Senator Leila De Lima are not true. He has no dealings with Sen. De Lima and has not given her any money at any given time," Espinosa's counter-affidavit read. "Any statement he made against the Senator are false and was the result only of pressure, coercion, intimidation, and serious threats to his life and family members from the police who instructed him to implicate the Senator into the illegal drug trade," it added. "For this, undersigned apologizes to Senator De Lima."

According to Palad, this is the first time Espinosa recanted his statement. Espinosa said in the counter-affidavit that he was "coerced, pressured, intimidated, and seriously threatened by the police." "He has no other option but to invent stories for fear of his life and of his family since his father, then Mayor Rolando Espinosa, Sr. was killed on November 5, 2016 or just 18 days prior to the Senate hearing," the document read. "Respondent was told to cooperate or else he and some members of his family will suffer the same fate as his father." Espinosa, Sr. was shot dead inside a jail cell in Albuera, Leyte, supposedly during service of a search warrant. He had earlier been detained for illegal drug possession. He was among the narco-politicians tagged by Duterte.

Espinosa submitted the counter-affidavit in response to a drug complaint filed against him last year based on his confessions before the Senate hearings in 2016. He is no longer under the witness protection program of the DOJ since early this year, after an alleged foiled attempt to escape from NBI custody. He has since been transferred to Bureau of Jail Management and Penology in Bicutan. Espinosa was arrested in Abu Dhabi in October 2016 and made various claims against De Lima including giving the senator money in Baguio City and giving P8 million through the senator's then-bodyguard Dayan, but his lawyer said he was never used as a witness in the court cases against De Lima.

One of the 3 drug cases against De Lima had been junked by a Muntinlupa court. The Supreme Court in 2017 voted to keep De Lima in jail. She is being detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

Source: news.abs-cbn.com