DoJ seeks HDO vs Lim

The Department of Justice (DoJ) wants to ensure businessman and alleged drug lord Peter Lim will not go on the lam.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra yesterday said prosecutors will file a motion before the Makati City Regional Trial Court for the issuance of a hold departure order against Lim.

“I expect our prosecutors to file an urgent motion for the issuance of hold-departure orders against all the accused as a matter of course,” Guevarra said.

Just a day earlier a panel of prosecutors led by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Juan Pedro Navera issued a resolution finding probable cause to charge Lim and three others with two counts of conspiracy to commit illegal drug trade.

The corresponding information was filed before the Makati court.

According to Guevarra, information from the Bureau of Immigration indicated that Lim is back in the country after a brief trip abroad last March.

Aside from Lim, also charged were self-confessed drug lord Rolan “Kerwin” Espinosa, Kerwin’s associate Marcelo Adorco and Ruel Malindagan.

Navera’s panel is the second such body to conduct the preliminary investigation of the complaint filed by Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) against several drug personalities.

On 20 December 2017 the DoJ dismissed the PNP-CIDG complaint against Lim and his fellow respondents but it was later reinstated by then Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.

Lim filed a petition before the Supreme Court in a bid to stop the second panel from proceeding with the preliminary investigation against him.

However, state prosecutors found Lim’s claim that he is not the person referred to as alias “Jaguar” to be “immaterial,” noting that both Espinosa and Adorco identified him in all of their illegal drug transactions.

“Furthermore, his alibi that he could not have possibly been in Thailand during the time attested by Adorco has to yield to the positive and affirmative statements of said witness,” the DoJ resolution said.