The Philippine National Police (PNP) is seeking a nod from the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) for the issuance of a Red Notice on Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison in order to expedite his arrest to face a case of multiple murder in the Philippines.
A Red Notice police forces worldwide about fugitives who are hiding in their respective countries.
PNP chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde said they are now coordinating with the Philippine Center on Transnational Crime (PCTC) to start the process against Sison who is currently in self-exile in Utrecht, Netherlands.
PCTC is the INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB) in the Philippines.
“It is in the Netherlands where he continues to exercise command and control of the New Peoples Army, the military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines under the umbrella of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines that is waging a terrorist campaign in some parts of the Philippines,” said Albayalde.
“His wife and co-accused Juliet De Lima Sison is with him in the Netherlands,” he added.
Sison and his wife, along with 31 others, are the subjects of a Warrant of Arrest for 15 counts of Murder issued last month by Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina, presiding judge of Regional Trial Court Branch 32 of Manila.
The case was in connection with the so-called massacre in Inopacan town of Leyte where communist rebels were reportedly executed by the NPA over suspicion that they were military spies.
The other accused remain at-large elsewhere. The case against them is a non-bailable offense.
“The legal basis for an Interpol Red Notice is an Arrest Warrant or Court Order issued by judicial authorities in a country. Many of Interpol’s member countries consider a Red Notice to be a valid request for provisional arrest,” said Albayalde.
Aside from the issuance of a Red Notice, Albayalde said the military is also working on the revocation of the political asylum extended to Sison by the government of Netherlands.
“Asylum can always be revoked, this is what we are asking from the Netherlands. They are giving asylum to people who are involved in heinous crime,” said Albayalde, referring to the group of Joma Sison.
“They are not considered as persecuted politically,” he added. (Aaron Recuenco)