Senator Calls Duterte 'Serial Killer,' Gets Arrested

A Philippine opposition senator and leading critic of President Rodrigo Duterte's deadly anti-drug crackdown was arrested Friday on drug charges but professed her innocence and vowed she would not be intimidated by a leader she called a "serial killer." Sen. Leila de Lima's arrest came a day after a court issued the warrant for her arrest, along with other officials who've been charged by state prosecutors for allegedly receiving bribes from detained drug lords, the AP reports. De Lima has denied the charges, which she said were part of an attempt by Duterte to muzzle critics of his crackdown, which has left more than 7,000 drug suspects dead.

"If they think they can silence me, if they think I will no longer fight for my advocacies, [especially] on the truth on the daily killings and other intimidations of this Duterte regime, it's my honor to be jailed for what I've been fighting for," she said before policemen took her into custody at the Senate. In one of her strongest statements against the president this week, de Lima called Duterte a "sociopathic serial killer." Duterte has lashed out at de Lima with foul language, calling her a sex-crazed immoral woman whose election opened "the portals of the national government ... to narco politics." (Duterte claims that as mayor of Davao City, he hunted down criminals and threw one from a helicopter.)