MANILA, Philippines - A Manila regional trial court ordered on Wednesday, December 19, the release of former police officer Michael Ray Aquino, detained by police in 2011 for his alleged involvement in the 2000 murder of publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer.

The court ordered the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to release Aquino after his camp moved that the evidence against him be dismissed for failing to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

The NBI is still looking if he has pending cases.

Aquino and fellow police officer Cesar Mancao were accused of killing Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in 2000. Aquino flew to New York but was arrested in 2005 over an expired visa.

He was extradited to the Philippines in 2011, 5 years after he pleaded guilty for illegal possession of classified documents.

He was charged in 2006 along with White House security specialist Leandro Aragoncillo for allegedly providing classified information about then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to their former superior in the Philippine National Police, now Sen. Panfilo Lacson.

Lacson was also impleaded in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case but the charges against him were dismissed in 2011 by the Court of Appeals.

Aquino used to be a senior superintendent in the now-defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, which was headed then by Lacson. - Rappler.com