Calls mount to free Filipino ex-senator after jail riot

MANILA, Philippines – Human rights activists pressed their call Monday for the immediate release of a former Philippine opposition senator after she was taken hostage in a rampage by three Muslim militants in a failed attempt to escape.

Police killed three Islamic State group-linked militants behind Sunday’s violence in which a police officer was stabbed and former Sen. Leila de Lima briefly taken hostage. The militants tried to escape from the jail for high-profile inmates at the national police headquarters in metropolitan Manila, police said.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch separately expressed deep alarm over the violence and the hostage-taking of de Lima. The groups call for her immediate release.

“That she has had to endure this traumatizing and frightening experience on top of being arbitrarily detained for over five years now is the height of outrage, negligence and injustice,” Amnesty International Philippine director Butch Olano said.

Supporters held a protest for de Lima, who was brought to a metropolitan Manila trial court Monday for a hearing, which was postponed.

“We condemned what happened yesterday,” said protester Charito del Carmen. “It’s painful for us because if she got killed what would happen to the fight for justice that we’ve been waging for her?”

De Lima, 63, has been detained since 2017 on drug charges she says were fabricated by former President Rodrigo Duterte and his officials in an attempt to muzzle her criticism of his deadly crackdown on illegal drugs. It left thousands of mostly petty suspects dead and sparked an International Criminal Court investigation as a possible crime against humanity.

She has been cleared in one of three cases, and at least two witnesses have retracted their allegations against her.

Duterte stepped down from office on June 30 at the end of his turbulent six-year term.

Newly elected President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. talked to de Lima, who was confined in a hospital, by telephone and asked if she wanted to be transferred to another detention site, but she rejected the offer, Azurin said.

Even before the jail violence, the European Union Parliament, some American legislators and U.N. human rights watchdogs have demanded that de Lima be freed immediately.

Associated Press journalist Aaron Favila contributed to this report.