Communist leader Sison arrested in The Netherlands Lira Dalangin-Fernandez Veronica Uy Thea Alberto Agence France-PresseINQUIRER.net
August 29, 2007
MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE 5) Self-exiled communist leader Jose Maria Sison has been arrested in the Netherlands on charges of being involved in murders of former political associates in the Philippines, officials said.
Sison, the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its military wing, the New People's Army (NPA), was arrested Tuesday in the central town of Utrecht where he has his residence. He has been living in the Netherlands since 1987.
"The communist leader was suspected of giving orders, from the Netherlands, to murder his former political associates in the Philippines, Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara," the Dutch national prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Malacañang welcomed the news of Sison’s arrest as a “giant step toward peace” as the Philippine military hailed it as a “triumph of justice.”
Following his arrest on Tuesday, the Dutch National Criminal Investigation Department combed Sison’s Utrecht apartment and the residences of eight of his associates working at the international office of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF) in Utrecht, according to the Dutch Ministry of Justice's website.
His lawyer, Jose Jalandoni, said he was on his way to see Sison but could not confirm if the arrest was related to the murder charges filed against the communist leader in the Philippines.
The son of NDF chief peace negotiator Luis Jalandoni, however, said he did not know of any murder charges Sison is facing in The Netherlands.
According to Dutch prosecutors, Sison ordered the assassination of Kintanar, the former leader of the NPA, on January 23, 2003. Kintanar was shot dead in a Japanese restaurant in Quezon City.
The communist rebels owned up to the murder of Kintanar for his alleged crimes against the “revolution and the people.”
The Dutch authorities are also investigating the role of Sison in the murders of Tabara and his son-in-law Stephen Ong on September 26, 2006. Tabara, former member of the highest command of the NPA, was branded by the communist rebels as a "seasoned criminal and fanatic contra-revolutionist."
Kintanar and Tabara led a faction of the CPP that broke away from the party in the early 1990s.
In Malacañang, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo welcomed the news of Sison’s arrest. “Its a giant step toward peace, a victory for justice and the rule of law,” she said.
Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro said: "The arrest of Sison is a triumph of justice. Ironic as it is, he is assured of his day in court -- a right denied to the thousands of innocent victims of communist kangaroo courts."
"This is history catching up with Mr. Sison. This is the long arm of the law catching up with Mr. Sison," he added.
Bacarro also noted that news of Sison's arrest came after the 26th anniversary of an opposition rally at Plaza Miranda in Manila in 1971, which was blamed on the communist leader.
In a phone interview, one of the lawyers helping work for the resumption of peace talks between the government and NDF said a judge and policemen went to Sison's house in the town of Utrecht to interrogate him.
The lawyer then said Sison was brought to The Hague, the Dutch capital.
Carl Ala, spokesman of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines) said Sison could be held for three to as long as 105 days on charges of "multiple murders and for calling for more murders."
Police also reportedly raided Sison's office in Utrecht and seized all computers, said Ala.
"They are really intensifying the attacks on progressive forces," said Ala in a text message.
On Tuesday a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in The Hague explained that Sison's arrest does not mean the Dutch plan to extradite him, as Manila had requested in 2003.
"This is a Dutch criminal case as ordering a murder even if it is committed abroad is a criminal offence under Dutch law," spokesman Wim de Bruin told Agence France-Presse.
Sison, 68, will appear in court in The Hague Friday for a remand hearing.
Sison, who left for the Netherlands in 1987, had filed for political asylum but his request was rejected by the Dutch authorities. They ruled, however, that he could not be sent back to the Philippines because his life would be in danger there.
Renato Reyes, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan, New Patriotic Alliance) secretary general said Sison's arrest showed that the government was not interested in pushing through with the stalled peace talks.
"This bodes ill for the peace process. The arrest was most probably undertaken with the knowledge and prodding of the Arroyo government who is out to sabotage all hopes for peace talks," said Reyes.
The peace negotiations have been stalled for around three years because of the inclusion of the CPP, NPA and Sison on the terror lists of the United States, European Union and other countries. His assets have been frozen and the Dutch state also blocked his pension.
Although Sison won one legal challenge against the listing, his name reappeared on a subsequent review of the list. To get that lifted he will have to file a separate legal challenge.
In an interview with Dutch daily "De Pers" a month ago Sison cast himself as a peacemaker and mediator in the Philippines. He rejected allegations from Manila about his involvement in crimes in the there.
"I am clean, legally speaking also in the Philippines," he told De Pers.
Sison complained about his financial situation saying that the Dutch government's freezing of his welfare and pension allowances meant he had to live off gifts from the Filipino community and his wife's welfare cheques.
"I am poor. Nobody wants to help me financially because when they do they could be accused of helping a terrorist," he said.
Last March, the Philippine government asked Interpol to issue arrest warrants for Sison and other members of the CPP for their alleged role in the killing of suspected "spies and counter-revolutionaries" from 1985 to 1991.
In August last year forensic investigators covered the remains of 67 people from a communist "killing field" in the central island of Leyte.
The communists, who once had more than 20,000 armed fighters, today have fewer than 7,000 armed combatants throughout the Philippines.
Sison maintains that he no longer leads the so-called revolutionary movement and is simply an advisor.
With reports from Joel Guinto, INQUIRER.net and Cynthia D. Balana, Philippine Daily Inquirer; Originally posted at 8:13 pm
