Interior Secretary Eduardo Año. INQUIRER.net file photo / NOY MORCOSO
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine government will coordinate with the Dutch government for the extradition of exiled communist leader Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said Thursday.
“The government will seek a special arrangement with the Dutch Government for the extradition of Joma Sison,” DILG said in a statement, quoting Interior Secretary Eduardo Año.
“On the grounds that his ‘refugee status’ is no longer tenable because he participated in the commission of crimes and other criminal acts as determined by the Regional Trial Court, which renders him effectively ineligible,” the DILG secretary added.
READ: Joma Sison told: Face trial for purge of ‘spies’
Sison and more than 30 individuals are currently the subjects of arrest warrants for 15 counts of murder in connection with the 1985 Inopacan massacre.
Sison and his wife, Juliet Sison, have been in self-exile in the Netherlands for around three decades. Juliet is also included in the arrest warrant.
READ: Manila court orders arrest of CPP’s Joma, 37 others over 80s ‘purge’
Año claimed Sison continues to direct “terrorist forces” in the Philippines by publishing statements which ordered members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and New People’s Army (NPA) “to kill and plunder in the Philippines.”
“This fact has been established when the United States, the European Union, and the Duterte administration declared the CPP/NPA as a terrorist organization,” Año said.
Año also called Sison a “coward,” urging the CPP founder to give justice to the victims of the so-called 1980s massacre.
“Duwag ka, Joma [You are a coward, Joma]. Now that you are in the last few years of your life, do something right for a change, own up to your sins against the Filipino people and face the charges against you and give justice to the victims of the Inopacan massacre, among many others,” he said.
Año previously said he talked with a deputy ambassador of the European Union to request Sison’s “refugee status” in Netherlands be revoked so that the communist leader will be turned over to the Philippines and face his murder charges. /jpv
READ: PH asks EU to revoke Joma’s refugee status