Dutch court to issue verdict on Joma's freedom next month
A Dutch court will issue next month its decision on a petition of the Dutch prosecution panel challenging the court’s decision to release Philippine communist leader Jose Maria Sison from prison while he undergoes pre-trial investigation, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau reported Thursday.
The report said the decision by the Court of Appeals in The Hague will be out on October 3 after a hearing on the petition took place on Wednesday.
The hearing, where Sison's wife, Juliet, was allowed inside the court for the first time, lasted an hour.
Sison appeared before a panel of three Court of Appeal judges in the Hague in connection with the public prosecutor’s appeal against the district court's decision on September 13 to release him from detention.
The founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines was ordered released after more than two weeks of detention at the Scheveningen prison.
Sison’s camp, however, was confident that the Dutch court will eventually dismiss the murder charges against him, noting that the prosecution panel does not have any new evidence to pin him down.
"Confident ako (I’m confident). I'm innocent. As I told the court, there can be no direct evidence or sufficient evidence so, yeah I think.. I'm confident the result will be good," Sison said.
"I'm sure they (the prosecution) will try everything they can to get him back into prison but if the court decides against the prosecution, it's gonna be a terrible blow for them and for the whole investigation. We have to wait and see," Sison’s lawyer, Michiel Pestman, said.
"But we are very positive about the outcome," the Dutch lawyer added.
Pestman also said the pieces of evidence presented were not strong enough to start a court proceeding.
Sison was arrested on August 28 on charges that he ordered the murders of his former associates in the Philippine communist movement Arturo Tabara and Romulo Kintanar.
According to Dutch law, Sison was detained pending investigation. The investigative judge decided on August to keep Sison in solitary confinement for another 14 days, noting that Sison might opt to escape should he be given temporary release.
On September 7, the investigation procedure against Sison entered the second stage when the prosecution requested that he be detained further for 90 days.
The court, however, decided to set Sison free while the pre-trial investigation continues.
With a report from Loui Galicia, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau
SOURCE: WWW.ABS-CBNNEWS.COM
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=94141
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