MANILA, Philippines -- Freed communist leader Jose Maria Sison hurled invectives at Malacañang, calling President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo a “demon infant” who “fooled” the Dutch government into believing he was a murderer.
In a phone interview, the 68-year-old Sison said his release confirmed that Manila simply filed trumped-up charges against him.
“My release only proves that the Dutch government was fooled by National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales and the demon infant Arroyo,” he said.
The District Court of The Hague on Thursday ordered Sison released after it failed to find “sufficient indications” he was involved in the murders of former political colleagues in the Philippines.
Sison, who has been living in the Dutch town of Utrecht since 1987, was arrested on August 28 on charges of having ordered the murder, from the Netherlands, of former comrades Arturo Tabara and Romulo Kintanar.
Kintanar and Tabara were among rebel leaders who led a faction that split from the mainstream communist movement in the 1990s. The communist rebels had owned up to the murders, dismissing the two as “counter-revolutionaries.”
Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing the New People’s Army, denied involvement in the assassinations.
He said the charges filed against him by the Dutch prosecutors were based on evidence in a rebellion case that the Philippine Supreme Court nullified in June.
According to Dutch prosecutors, Sison ordered the assassination of Kintanar, former NPA chief, on January 23, 2003. Prosecutors are also investigating the role of Sison in the killings of Tabara and his son-in-law Stephen Ong on September 26, 2006.
But Sison said his differences of opinion with Kintanar and Tabara never went beyond intellectual discourse.
“They said I plotted what happened to Kintanar and Tabara because I debated with them,” he said. “I won in my debates with them… I openly criticized them for their criminal activities.”
Sison cited the Digos massacre, the Ahos campaign, holdup incidents, and the many murders (“sobra sobrang pagpatay) of abusive traffic policemen. “I asked the NDF to investigate them,” he said.
Communist rebels were suspects in the massacre of 38 innocent civilians in a church in Digos, Davao Del Sur, while the nationwide Ahos campaign in the 1980s involved the internal purge of communist cadres suspected of being government spies who were called “deep penetration agents or DPAs.”
Sison described his 17-day stay at a prison center in The Hague as “torturous” and reminded him of his days in jail during the martial rule of former president Ferdinand Marcos.
“I remember the time I spent in solitary confinement during the time of the late dictator president Ferdinand Marcos. They interrogated me every day and there was an overheated electric bulb overhead,” he said.
Sison said that while he was very happy with his release, his incarceration in The Netherlands made him furious. “Being jailed is difficult because I did not do anything wrong.”
The European Union had designated the CPP as a terrorist group in 2002.
Sison said he told his interrogators that the burden of proof did not lie with him but with the Dutch prosecution.
The Dutch authorities began its investigation in January 2006, he said. “They had more than one year to prove their case. Then they arrested me,” said Sison, who has been living in exile in the Netherlands since 1987.
Earlier, the Dutch Ministry of Justice said the order was for Sison’s immediate release.
The ministry’s statement is available online at http://www.rechtspraak.nl/Gerechten/Rechtbanken/s-Gravenhage/Actualiteiten/Filipino+Sison+released.htm.
But the communist leader is not off the hook yet as the District Court of The Hague does not preclude him from being prosecuted on murder charges.
“The charges are not being dropped. The investigation will continue and the national police still consider him a suspect,” spokesman Wim De Bruin of the national prosecutor's office told INQUIRER.net in a phone interview.
De Bruin said his office will appeal the court’s decision on Sison’s release.
Aside from Sison not being in police custody, he said, the other difference with this court decision is that the trial will not proceed in 90 days.
“Now that he is released, there is no need for a trial within three months…It can start longer than three months,” he said.
Sison’s release was first conveyed to INQUIRER.net by NDF chief peace negotiator Luis Jalandoni in a phone interview.
The CPP founder said his release is advantageous to him because he can now present his own witnesses and his lawyer, Michiel Pestman from the Bohler, Franken, and Koppe law offices, can cross-examine the prosecution witnesses.
Meantime, Sison, his colleagues and supporters would celebrate his freedom.
“We will have a celebration in the office. I hope they won’t raid it,” he said.
