THE National Bureau of Investigation late on Wednesday took into custody Kerwin Espinosa, the son of slain Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa and a self-confessed drug lord, an official said Thursday.
The Espinosas were both linked to the illegal drug trade by the Duterte administration.
“We confirm that Kerwin Espinosa is now under the custody of the NBI,” NBI spokesman Ferdinand Lavin told reporters at the sidelines of a Christmas Party for the media at the NBI Headquarters in Manila on Thursday.
“He is in a secure facility inside the NBI. We subjected him to a physical and medical examination. He is stable. He is in good physical health,” Lavin said.
He said they took custody of Espinosa because of a court order.
“I do not know yet the arrangements with the court if there is a transfer of venue on the hearing. But we were ordered to take him into custody,” Lavin said.
He said only Espinosa’s lawyer was allowed to visit him.
Espinosa, handcuffed and wearing a bullet-proof vest, was brought to the NBI almost a week after a Baybay, Leyte court ordered his transfer from the Philippine National Police’s Anti-illegal Drugs Group.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II has said a court is still trying to determine if Espinosa could be admitted to the government’s Witness Protection Program.
Espinosa had been under the custody of the AIDG since his arrest in Abu Dhabi in October, months after President Rodrigo Duterte linked him and his father, the late Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa, to the illegal drug trade.
The Albuera mayor died after members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group served a search warrant on him while he was inside the Leyte Sub-Provincial Jail and claimed he shot it out with the policemen.
The CIDG members involved are now under restrictive custody and facing investigation. Kerwin claims that some of them were among those who received drug money from him.
He also claims to have contributed P8 million to then justice secretary Leila De Lima’s senatorial campaign, an allegation denied by the senator.