Joma Lawyer: Prosecutor Under Political Pressure

Joma Lawyer: Prosecutor Under Political Pressure

By LOUI GALICIA
ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau

The camp of Jose Maria "Joma" Sison’s believes that the Dutch Public Prosecution Office is under political pressure to continue its investigation of the Communist Party of the Philippines founding chairman.

"We are disappointed but not surprised. They will continue the investigation, everyone knows, but it will not lead to anything. The politics has been the main consideration to continue this and not abandon the case yet. There must have been pressure on the Prosecution to continue," Michiel Pestman, Sison's lawyer, said in a telephone interview.

The Dutch Openbaar Ministerie (OM, or Public Prosecution Office) released a statement on January 18 that it will continue its investigation on the alleged involvement of Sison in the killings of former communist leaders Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara.

C.M. de Rijks, the trial judge of the District Court of The Hague, closed the criminal pre-investigation against Sison on November 29. The judge said that the prosecutor failed to provide enough information to continue the criminal pre-investigation.

De Rijks also cited two previous decisions in favor of Sison, namely the September 23 decision of the Raadkamer against detaining him because of lack of serious, grave presumptions and incriminating evidence as well as a Court of Appeals’ decision of October 3.

Sison, who is also the chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front (NDF), was arrested and detained in the Scheveningen detention center in The Hague on August 28 last year for alleged involvement in the murders of erstwhile allies Kintanar and Tabara in the Philippines. He was later released pending the pre-trial investigation.

"Basically what they’re doing is buying for time. For some reason, they’re not confident to take a decision now which means that there is no evidence yet," Pestman explained to ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau.

Pestman said that after the closure of the pre-investigation trial in November, public prosecutor J.S. de Vries came under mounting pressure to announce a decision on whether to drop the charges or not.

"It’s just a way to postpone the whole decision. The only thing is that they don’t have to take this difficult decision now. The Prosecutor is afraid to take the decision on the case, to abandon the case," Pestman said.

Pestman still stands by his expectation that the case will eventually be dropped.

"We have to see what we can do. But we can file objections and it’s very likely that we will do that," he said.

The public prosecutor for her part, cannot at this point give a clear indication as to her decision.

In a separate telephone interview, OM spokesman Wim de Bruin said that the police investigation will be continued.

He said the investigation is expected to be completed this summer, when the prosecutor will decide whether to bring the case to the court or not.

He said that the public prosecutor may find that there is a reason to investigate the case further. That, however, will take some time.

De Bruin explained that when the pre-investigation trial was closed, the police investigation continued and his office was instructed to inform Sison about the situation.

"When the judge dropped the case that didn’t mean that the investigation was finished. The police investigation was continued in November and will take some more months," de Bruin said.

"We do continue the investigation but it is too early at this moment to say what is the final conclusion," de Bruin said.

Asked if at this moment the Public Prosecutor’s Office thinks that there is a case against Sison, de Bruin replied, "There is a reason to investigate, that is different."

He also explained that there is nothing new regarding the fear from Sison’s camp that the present charge to incite murder will be expanded to a case of war-crime command responsibility.

In a statement received by ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau, NDF chairman Luis Jalandoni condemned the prolonged investigation of Sison, which he said is an attack on the organization and the peace process.

Jalandoni also warned in his statement that there are indications that the Dutch prosecutor intends to expand the charge of inciting murder to a charge of war crimes, "in order to get away from the rigorous rule of evidence of direct and personal responsibility in a case of murder to the rule of command responsibility."

"If this shift were to be done, the Dutch Prosecutor will be practically recognizing the existence of a civil war in the Philippines and accusing Prof. Sison of being a leader of a belligerent force under international law," Jalandoni said in his statement.

De Bruin, however, said that it is all pure speculation.

"Yeah. But then, that’s speculating. I can’t do that. So I can’t tell you more than they are investigating…I’m not sure but I think it was already last year in the news, the possibility of the involvement [Sison’s] in war crimes," de Bruin said.

Pestman, meanwhile, thinks the war-crime command responsibility issue is irrelevant to Sison’s case.

"It’s a different label for the same facts. And if you can’t prove the facts then it doesn’t matter what label you put on it," Pestman said.

"If you know you’re going to win the case by changing the label...it only shows how desperate they are," he added.

In a separate interview, Sison’s wife Juliet said that her husband appeared before the Immigation and Naturalization Service (Immigratie-en Naturalisatiedienst or IND) Monday morning for a hearing on his appeal to be granted residency.

Sison’s legal status in the Netherlands remains in a state of limbo since the inclusion of his name on the European Union’s list of terrorists.

Sison went into exile in The Netherlands in 1987. Two decades later, he went back to square one in seeking asylum as a political refugee.

Mrs. Sison said her husband's lawyer has found a similar case giving hope that he will be granted resident status in The Netherlands.

"Ano kasi, nag-appeal 'yung lawyer niya dahil nagkaroon daw ng isang decision na somebody, out of procedure, na obligado ang state na bigyan siya ng residence. But anyway, 'yun ang hinihingi ng lawyers dahil merong precedent. 'Yang hearing na 'yan, dahil matagal na siyang walang status, baka bigyan siya dahil may decision ng similar case," she said.

(His lawyer filed an appeal because a decision said that the state is obligated to grant him residency..that's what the lawyers want because there is a precedent. He might be given residency status because there was a decision on a similar case.)

SOURCE: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/

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