Laila de Lima, A Philippine politician and human rights activist who has been in prison for six years was acquitted today of one of the last two drug-trafficking charges brought against her under former President Rodrigo Duterte.

The former senator and Minister of Justiceas well as another person who was tried with her, “are acquitted of the crime they were accused of due to reasonable doubts”, according to the text of the decision of Judge Abraham Alcantara.

Mrs. de Lima xshe burst into tears hearing the decision. She spoke of a “brilliant day” to reporters, “thanking” those who supported her, as officers carried her into a police vehicle after the hearing.

The 63-year-old politician and activist he is among the fiercest opponents of former President Duterte and the bloody “war on drugs” he declared after taking power in the Philippines.

He was jailed in February 2017, charged with drug trafficking, a case that human rights groups saw as a travesty of justice and an act of revenge for standing up to Mr. Duterte.

Despite her acquittal, Ms. de Lima will remain in prison pending her trial in yet another case. The former senator has applied to be released with restrictive conditions and is awaiting the judge’s decision.

If convicted, she could face life in prison.

Mrs. de Lima was accused how he received money from prisoners for drug trafficking when he was Secretary of Justice (2010-2015), during the presidency of Benigno Aquino.

The charges against her came months after she took the initiative to launch a Senate investigation into Mr. Duterte’s “war on drugs.” Many inside and outside the country consider Laila de Lima a political prisoner.

Two of the prosecution witnesses they have diedhey, others have recanted their statements, explaining that they were forced to accuse her.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention stressed in 2018 that Ms de Lima’s imprisonment was “arbitrary, given the absence of a legal basis”, adding that her right to a fair trial had not been “respected”.

Before her arrest in 2017, the politician had dedicated herself for a decade to researching the thousands of people murdered by “death squads” which he accused Mr. Duterte of creating when he was mayor of Davao City (South) and continuing to unleash them after taking over as president.

In his speeches, former President Duterte had repeatedly accused Ms. de Lima of being involved in drug trafficking. The politician and activist herself, who has received international awards, countered that the former president was determined to silence her, that it was now a vendetta.

In 2021, when court rejected one of three drug-trafficking charges against her, hate campaigns had been launched against her on social networking sites.

The lawyer of the politician, Philibon Tacardon, read to the journalists a statement of his client: “from the beginning I did not doubt that I would be acquitted by justice”, he says, among other things.