Alleged bigtime drug lord and Cebu-based businessman Peter Lim on Thursday faced probers at the National Bureau of Investigation to “clear” his name.
“My family’s life is in danger because of all these wrongful allegations,” he told the Inquirer inside the NBI elevator.
Lim, 69, was the Cebu-based businessman whom President Rodrigo Duterte accused of being a drug lord. He was also the same person that the House of Representatives committee on dangerous drugs investigated in 2006 for the same allegations.
READ: Duterte to Peter Lim: Face drug probe
But Lim said there was no truth to that and his cooperation in the bureau’s probe would prove that.
“He has no choice. He has to face the music,” said Lim’s lawyer Ramon Esguerra in a separate interview.
Esguerra added: “The real Peter Lim will never surface.”
READ: NBI probing identity of drug lord ‘Peter Lim’
Lim, in barong, and his lawyers arrived at the bureau past noon and proceeded to the conference room, where investigators led by Director Roel Bolivar, head of the NBI’s special task force on drug abuse, talked with him. The meeting lasted for three hours.
There was a stenographer inside and the questioning, which Esguerra described as a “probe,” was taped. Lim also presented his passport “for identification purposes,” said Esguerra.
NBI spokesman Peter Lavin said Lim’s camp submitted an affidavit but Esguerra later clarified this, saying they gave the NBI a letter — not an affidavit.
Esguerra said the letter, addressed to NBI director Dante Gierran, aimed to prove Lim’s innocence. But he declined to elaborate. “The NBI said it should be confidential,” Esguerra said.
Lavin also said that the bureau has formed a special task force that would focus on Lim’s case.
Esguerra said that what happened on Thursday was just preliminary. His client will go back to Cebu but he is willing to come back to the NBI if needed. With Faye Orellana/JE/rga
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