Leila de Lima, a senator in the Philippines and one of President Rodrigo Duterte's most vocal critics, was arrested Friday on drug-trafficking charges.
On Thursday, de Lima was indicted over allegations that from 2010 to 2015, during her tenure as justice secretary, she allowed the drug trade to thrive in the national jail, Bloomberg reports. Before surrendering to authorities, de Lima told reporters she is "innocent" and there is "no truth to allegations that I benefited from the illegal drug trade, that I took drug money, that I protected drug convicts — these are all lies." The current justice secretary, Vitaliano Aguirre, denied that de Lima's arrest was politically motivated, saying probable cause had been established.
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