Council Of EU Fails to Present Any Concrete Evidence of Any Specific Act of Terrorism Against Prof. Jose Maria Sison
BY THE INTERNATIONAL DEFEND COMMITTEE
DEMOCRATIC SPACE
Posted by (Bulatlat.com)
The oral procedure in the case of Prof. Jose Maria Sison against the Council of the European Union for unjustly maintaining him in the so-called terrorist blacklist without any concrete evidence against him for any specific act of terrorism was conducted and concluded at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg last Thursday 30 April 2009.
Prominent German human rights lawyer Eberhard Schultz gave a factual presentation of who is Prof. Jose Maria Sison and what is his role in the progressive movement in the Philippines in order to explain why several governments, including the Philippine, Dutch and US governments, have collaborated in his political persecution and have used the Council of the European Union to blacklist him as a terrorist for narrow political purposes rather than for any legal reason related to the fight against terrorism.
Jan Fermon, lead lawyer in the case, took up the legal issues in the Sison case. He pointed out that the Council of the EU did not meet the basic legal requirements for putting Prof. Sison in the blacklist. According to Article 1 (4) of the Common Position 2001/931 and Article 2/3 of Regulation 2580/2001, listing a person must be : 1) on the basis of precise information or material, 2) that a decision has been taken by a competent authority in respect to the person concerned, 3) concerns instigation of investigations or prosecution, 4) for a terrorist act, an attempt to perpetrate, participate in or facilitate such a act; and 5) based on serious and credible evidence or clues or condemnation for such deeds.
Fermon held responsible the Council of the EU and the Dutch government as intervener for misrepresenting the judgments of the Dutch Council of State in 1992 and 1995 and the Dutch Law Uniformity Chamber in 1997 on the asylum case of Prof. Sison as condemnations of him for terrorism. In fact, said court judgments recognized him as a political refugee under Article 1 A of the Refugee Convention, and ruled that he had no criminal liability whatsoever that would exclude him as a political refugee. It is ridiculous for the Dutch government and the Council of the EU to take out of context certain passages in the aforesaid Dutch court judgments in 1992, 1995 and 1997 which refer to unproven secret intelligence reports about events which had occurred before 1990.
Fermon also held responsible the Council of the EU and the Dutch government for once more misrepresenting judgments of the District Court of the Hague on 13 September 2007 and the Dutch Appeal Court on 3 October 2007 on false murder charges against Prof. Sison as judgments condemning him for terrorism. In fact the court decisions released Prof. Sison from detention on the ground of insufficient evidence for the charges of inciting murder. Fermon pointed out that the Dutch prosecution service closed the prosecution of Prof. Sison in accordance with judgments of the Dutch district court, appellate court and the examining judge.
The lawyers of the Council of the EU and the Dutch government conceded that the termination of the prosecution of Prof. Sison was a new element which must be taken into account in further considerations by the bodies concerned with blacklisting him. But cleverly or deviously they declared that they could not say what these bodies would decide and they implied that everyone and even the court would have to wait for their decisions.
The presiding judge asked the lawyer of the Dutch government why after all these years the Dutch government had never initiated any criminal investigation of Prof. Sison for terrorism. Said lawyer was at a loss to give a straightforward answer but merely muttered that there was no need for any criminal investigation for someone to be blacklisted as a terrorist. The presiding judge also asked Jan Fermon to submit within seven days the official documentation of the statement of the Dutch foreign minister soon after the terrorist blacklisting of Prof. Sison in 2002 that there was nothing to start a criminal investigation against him.
As early as 1990, nearly two decades before 9-11, the Dutch justice ministry made a negative decision on Prof. Sison’s application for asylum by disregarding evidence that the Aquino regime had nullified all the charges made against him by the Marcos fascist regime and had allowed his reinstatement as faculty member in the state-owned University of the Philippines in 1986 and by falsely accusing him of being intellectual author of the violent acts of the New People’s Army on the basis of false allegations supplied by the Philippine military authorities.
