The legal team representing journalist and Nobel laureate Maria Ressa welcomed a Philippine Justice Department decision Tuesday to drop a criminal case against the award-winning journalist.
Ressa had been facing charges of alleged foreign ownership of her news website Rappler. If convicted, she could have faced up to 21 years in prison.
"For years our brave client Maria Ressa has faced a barrage of spurious criminal investigations and prosecutions for doing her job — for being a journalist. We are pleased to see another spurious case against Maria dismissed," Ressa's lawyer, Caoilfhionn Gallagher, said in a statement.
The charges related to whether a 2015 investment from an American philanthropic investment fund allegedly violated a prohibition in Philippine law against foreign ownership or control of media organizations. Her international legal team said there was no evidence of any wrongdoing in the case.
"Again, facts win. Truth wins. Justice wins. We will continue to hold the line," Ressa said in a statement.
The dismissal of the charges is the latest development in Ressa's multiyear legal saga in the Philippines, which media critics widely view as retaliatory.
At one point, the Filipino American journalist faced a potential combined sentence of more than 100 years in jail for the multiple cases filed.
The Philippine government has previously denied that the legal action against Ressa and Rappler is retaliatory.
"This is an important victory for Maria and for the press. Maria has spent four years with these baseless charges hanging over her, and we are delighted that they have finally been dismissed," said Amal Clooney, who leads Ressa's international legal team with Gallagher at Doughty Street Chambers.
In September, a Philippine court acquitted Ressa and Rappler of tax evasion charges.
But other cases remain active. Ressa is on bail while appealing a 6 ½-year prison sentence handed down in 2020 for cyber libel. She is also facing separate criminal proceedings, which carry a maximum 15-year sentence, stemming from the same 2015 foreign investment.
Rappler, meanwhile, is fighting a closure order issued by the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission.
"We hope that the remaining charges will now be dropped so that justice can be restored, and journalism can thrive in the Philippines," Clooney said in a statement.
