AJLPP Update 082802

August 29, 2007



The Manila Times

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Dutch arrest Joma

Manila---JOSE Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), was arrested in The Netherlands after a Dutch court judge

issued a warrant for his arrest, according to the Department of

Foreign Affairs.

The DFA confirmed reports aired on the TV network ABS-CBN that said

Sison is in custody of the Dutch police. Sison is chief consultant of

the National Democratic Front (NDF) in the suspended peace talks

between the communist rebels and the Philippine government.

Sison was apprehended in The Hague, the Dutch capital, in connection

with the alleged killings of "deep penetration agents" of the New

People's Army in Leyte Province, according to the ABS-CBN website.

Bayan Muna Party-List Rep. Satur Ocampo was also linked to the

killings in the province.

Earlier in March 2007, The Manila Times reported that Ocampo and

several communist leaders were charged with multiple counts of murder

before Judge Ephrem Abando of the Leyte Regional Trial Court.

The charges correspond to alleged killing of 15 of the 67 persons

whose skeletons were recovered in a mass grave in a remote village in

Inopacan, Leyte. Relatives of the slain members of the Armed Forces

claim they have identified the 15 skeletons.

Secretary to the Cabinet Ricardo Saludo refused to comment, saying

that Malacañang has yet to confirm the arrest.

Sison, who went into self-exile not long after the People Power

Revolution in 1986, is facing murder and rebellion charges in the

Philippines.

Malacañang had disclosed its intention to have Sison deported to the

country, but the absence of an extradition treaty between the

Philippines and The Netherlands has prevented the plan.

Since August 2002, Sison has been classified as a person supporting

terrorism by the government of the United States and the European

Union. But EU's second highest court recently ruled to delist him from

the EU terror list—which annulled the earlier decision.

Sison, now 68, was born on February 8, 1939, in Cabugao, Ilocus Sur.

He was a professor at the University of the Philippines and also a

writer. He founded the CPP in 1968. The following year, the CPP

organized its military wing, the New People's Army.

--With Francis Earl A. Cueto