MANILA: A Philippine court said on Tuesday (Oct 8) it has thrown out a decades-old civil case against the widow of late president Ferdinand Marcos, dealing a fresh blow to a protracted effort to recover alleged ill-gotten wealth.
In ruling for Imelda Marcos, the special anti-graft court chastised government lawyers for their "unjustified" absence at court hearings and for submitting "mere photocopies" of documentary evidence that the judge rejected.
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Filed shortly after Marcos fled to the US in exile following a bloodless 1986 "people power" revolt, the case sought to seize shares of stocks and real estate which it said were already worth millions of dollars at the time.
"The plaintiff … failed to prove by preponderance of evidence that the defendants by themselves, or in conspiracy with the defendants the Marcoses, obtained ill-gotten wealth," said the Sep 25 court ruling made public only on Tuesday.
"Of course Madam Imelda is elated," said Robert Sison, lawyer for the now 90-year-old former first lady Imelda Marcos, one of the seven defendants.
Sison told AFP he expects the government to appeal the court verdict, adding his client is still facing more than a dozen similar cases.
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Spokesmen for the Ombudsman, the special anti-graft prosecutor who filed the case, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
After Marcos was overthrown, the successor government accused his family of embezzling at least US$10 billion from the national coffers during its 20-year rule and of using business cronies and secret foreign bank accounts to hide its assets.
Marcos' heirs returned to the Philippines and made a spectacular political comeback after the patriarch died in exile in Hawaii in 1989.
His eldest daughter Imee won a Senate seat in May while the ex-president's son, also named Ferdinand Marcos, narrowly lost the 2016 vice presidential election contest, a result he is contestingRead More – Source
