That's up to the journalist, but I think keeping and dropping it are both reasonable choices. Suppose this had happened in a corrupt legal system (where both th

That's up to the journalist, but I think keeping and dropping it are both reasonable choices. Suppose this had happened in a corrupt legal system (where both the journalist and reader agree it is corrupt) - in that case we would expect the 'alleged' to remain. And even non-corrupt legal systems can make mistakes - I've heard people with experience in the matter express low faith in the abilities of US juries, for example.