Sison mocks PNP arrest threat: “Extradition my foot”

LUCENA CITY—“Extradition my foot.”

This was the mocking reply of exiled Philippine communist leader Jose Maria Sison to the Philippine National Police’s statement that it was seeking the help of the International Criminal Police Cooperation (Interpol) to arrest Sison.

Sison, in an online interview from his base in Utrecht, the Netherlands on Tuesday, Sept. 10, said the Philippine government has no authority to have him arrested because he was a “recognized political refugee.”

Also, he said, the Philippines and the Netherlands do not have an extradition treaty that would make it possible for the Duterte administration to bring him back to the Philippines.

He added that the Netherland government was likely to reject any attempt by the Philippine government to arrest him “not to speak of the bad reputation of the Duterte regime as human rights violator and mass murderer.”

Sison and other Philippine communist rebel leaders had been charged with the killing of supposed spies in the 1980s in a case that was breathed new life when a Manila court issued an arrest order for them.

But Sison said the charge against him must go through due process in the Netherlands “with my rights to be informed of the charge, to have counsel and to ask for judicial review.”

“For the charge to be valid, the alleged crime must have been committed in The Netherlands,” he said.

“My points here are sustained by previous court decisions in the Netherlands at the highest level of the judicial system,” he said.

Sison said his panel of legal counsels “can easily debunk the charge which refers to a fabricated incident in 1985.”

“Duterte and his military nincompoops are just doing psywar about something that they do not know anything about,” he said.

“Extradition, my foot!” Sison said as he taunted the government efforts to force him to return to the Philippines to face the criminal cases against him.

“I am protected by the Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights’,” he added.

Earlier, PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde announced that the Philippine police were seeking the help of Interpol to arrest Sison.

Albayalde said the PNP, through the Philippine Center of Transnational Crimes, is coordinating with Interpol for the issuance of a “red notice” for Sison’s arrest.

A red notice is an international alert for a fugitive and is considered to be a valid request for provisional arrest by Interpol, according to Albayalde.

Sison and his wife Juliet have been living in the Netherlands as political refugees for more than three decades now./tsb