Tagged as drug lord, Peter Lim insists he’s innocent

“I’m innocent.”

Cebu-based businessman Peter Lim yesterday made this statement as he faced probers at the National Bureau of Investigation to clear his name of suspicions that he is a big-time drug lord.

“I’m here because I’m innocent. My family is in danger because of wrongful allegations,” he told the Inquirer.

Lim, 69, was the Cebuano businessman identified by President Rodrigo Duterte as a big-time drug lord. He was the same person the House of Representatives committee on dangerous drugs investigated in 2006 for the same allegations.

But Lim denied the allegations, saying he is willing to cooperate with the bureau’s investigation to prove his accusers wrong.

“He has no choice. He has to face the music,” Ramon Esguerra, Lim’s lawyer, said in a separate interview.

“The real Peter Lim will never surface,” he said.

Lim arrived at the NBI with his lawyers past noon and was interviewed by the probers, led by the bureau’s special task force on drug abuse head Director Roel Bolivar.

The questioning was taped and a stenographer was present at the meeting, which lasted for three hours.

Lim presented his passport “for identification purposes,” said Esguerra.

NBI spokesperson Peter Lavin said Lim’s camp submitted an affidavit, which Esguerra later clarified as a letter.

Esguerra said the letter, which they addressed to NBI Director Dante Gierran, was to prove Lim’s innocence. He declined to elaborate.

“The NBI said it should be confidential,” Esguerra said.

Lavin also said the bureau has formed a fact-finding team that would focus on Lim’s case.

Esguerra said the interrogation that happened yesterday was just preliminary. His client would go back to Cebu but he is willing to come back to the NBI if necessary. With a report from Faye Orellana