The Justice department has recommended the indictment of Cebu-based businessman Peter Go Lim for allegedly conspiring to trade in illegal drugs with self-confessed drug distributor Kerwin Espinosa and several other people.
The agency made the statement even as Espinosa’s lawyer on Friday insisted there was no proof linking his client to the drugs seized from the house of his father Rolando, the former mayor of Albuera, Leyte, who was slain in 2016.
During trial at the Manila Regional Trial Court’s Branch 26, the prosecution’s witness, a Leyte police officer, confirmed that he did not find anything that would implicate Espinosa to the seized items.
In a resolution released on Friday, the Justice Departments panel of prosecutors said it found probable cause to indict Lim along with Espinosa, Peter Co, Marcelo Adorco, Lovely Impal and Ruel Malindangan for drug trafficking.
The department said the criminal complaint against Lim, Espinosa, Co, Adorco, Impal and Malindangan will be filed next week before the Regional Trial Court in Makati City.
The prosecutors ruled that the admission of respondent Espinosa during the legislative investigation of the Senate committees on justice and public order, together with Adorco’s positive identification of Lim as one of Kerwin’s suppliers of dangerous drugs, was enough to establish probable cause to charge them with conspiracy to trade in illegal drugs.
They rejected the defense of Lim that he was not one alias “Jaguar” as he was positively identified by both Espinosa and Adorco.
Besides, the prosecutors said, Lim’s alibi that he could not have possibly been in Thailand during the time attested to by Adorco had to yield to the positive and affirmative statements of the witness.
The department’s indictment of Lim came three weeks after its prosecutors recommended the filing of a criminal complaint against Espinosa, Co, Adorco, Impal, and Malindangan for committing the same offense.