Joma lawyers to use RP high court ruling in defense

Joma lawyers to use RP high court ruling in defense

Six international lawyers of arrested Philippine communist leader Jose Maria Sison believe that he will be a free man again on Friday when the Dutch court begins its proceedings on his case following his arrest Tuesday.

Luis Jalandoni, chief negotiator of the National Democratic Front (NDF), sad the lawyers will cite the July 2, 2007 ruling of the Philippine Supreme Court that cleared Sison and Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo from the murder of over 60 alleged members of the New People's Army in Leyte province.

Jalandoni said the lawyers are also preparing Sison's defense against charges filed by Dutch authorities regarding the assassinations of Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara in 2003 and 2004, respectively.

The Netherlands-based Jalandoni said the documents will be presented before a court in The Hague during a scheduled hearing on Friday.

The NDF chief negotiator said Sison has an advantage on his case.Sison was arrested Tuesday by members of the International Crime Investigation Team of the Dutch National Criminal Investigation Department for allegedly giving orders from his residence in The Netherlands to have Tabara and Kintanar killed.

The Dutch Prosecutor’s Office is set to submit its case against Sison before the Den Hag Regional Court on Friday.

The Dutch police have been gathering evidence against Sison in the Philippines since 2006 in relation to the Kintanar and Tabara murder cases.

Seven houses and offices, including those of Sison and Jalandoni, were included in the raids that were led by 30 policemen and a female judge.

The Dutch police confiscated five computers, several diskettes, books and documents.Jalandoni said the last report he received about Sison's condition was at 9 p.m. Tuesday (3 a.m. Wednesday in Manila).

He said Sison is being held at a police detention facility near The Hague.He said Sison was made to face two preliminary hearings on his case since his detention.

He said Sison was in good condition and his wife had sent medicine and clothes for the arrested communist leader.Jalandoni earlier told ABS-CBN News that Sison’s arrest was meant to pressure the NDF to go back to the negotiating table and surrender to the Philippine government.

"These trumped up charges are a violation of Sison's rights. This is a form of pressure from the European Union, British ambassador, the US and Arroyo regimes to pressure the NDF to enter peace talks under the terms of capitulation or surrender," he told ABS-CBN.

Jalandoni said Dutch police tricked Sison into thinking that he was being invited to their station to discuss the threats on his life only to be detained. Jalandoni said he was also interrogated by the police for an hour after accompanying Sison to the police station.

He also confirmed reports that the Dutch police raided their houses and the NDF office in Utrecht.

Sison has been living in self-exile in The Netherlands since the late 1980s.

With reports from Danny Buenafe, Loui Galicia, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau

SOURCE/ WWW.ABS-CBNNEWS.COM

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