How many assassination attempts were perpetrated against you from 1999 to 2001, and who perpetrated these?
JMS: In the period of 1999 to 2001, certain national police officials and their assets like Romulo Kintanar sent assassination teams twice to the Netherlands and made two or three attempts to assassinate me. Even the Dutch police team investigating the charge against me turned up some of the witnesses and documentary evidence validating my previous complaints against the assassination attempts.
But the Dutch Public Prosecution Service has failed to prosecute those involved in the assassination attempts against me on Dutch soil. Thus, I have filed before the Dutch appellate court a complaint against the Dutch prosecution service since June 2008. If my complaint does not prosper in the Netherlands, I will have to pursue the case up to the level of the European Court on Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Does the dismissal of the charge of inciting murder make you more optimistic about having your name stricken off the Council of the European Union’s “terrorist list”?
On April 30, 2009, there will be the final oral hearing before the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg concerning my complaint against the Council of the European Union for continuing to put my name in the so-called terrorist blacklist. In view of the dismissal of the charge of inciting murder, I am optimistic that the European court will grant my demand for the removal of my name from the blacklist.
As I have earlier pointed out in this interview, the Dutch government and the Council of the European are trying to misappropriate and misuse the passing statement of the Dutch district and appellate courts that there are “indications” that I play a “prominent” role in the CPP which heads the NPA. But it is obvious from said court decisions and the dismissal of the charge of inciting murder that there is no conclusive proof that I am Armando Liwanag and that I am culpable for the actions of the NPA in the killing of the two military agents Kintanar and Tabara or any other incident.
On the basis of things taken during the raids of August 2007, there may be indications galore that I have some kind of connection to the CPP and other allied organizations of the NDFP, including the NPA. But that is entirely because of the circumstance that I am the chief political consultant of the NDFP panel negotiating peace with the Manila government. I receive and study documents of the NDFP and its allied organizations for the purpose of peace negotiations and not for the purpose of waging war or anything that may be deemed as “terrorism.”
If from my arrest and the raids of August 2007 evidence was discovered that I had committed the crime of terrorism or some other serious crime, then the Dutch prosecution would have filed the appropriate charge against me. Under Dutch law, one may be accused of a certain crime and may be subsequently charged for another crime or other crimes in the course of investigation. But the pure and simple fact is that the Dutch prosecution service dismissed the murder charge and found no cause and no evidence for another charge.
Aside from legal moves against the Dutch government, are you and Attorney Pestman also considering legal moves against the Philippine government?
Attorney Pestman and I have not yet considered any legal move against the Manila government. I can raise the matter to him when I see him next. And I can communicate with Atty. Romeo T. Capulong. In the meantime, I am pleased that Bayan (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, New Patriotic Alliance) and other groups in the Philippines are calling the National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales to task and want him to account for the misappropriation of public funds in fabricating false charges, false witnesses and false evidence against me.
The Arroyo regime has become utterly notorious throughout the world for using false charges to demonize its opponents and set them up either for arrest and detention or for abduction, torture and murder by death squads. The UN Alston report has exposed these grave human rights violations and has recommended the dissolution of the Inter-Agency Legal Action Group (IALAG). But still the human right violations are being committed with impunity. And IALAG persists.
The Arroyo regime fed the Dutch foreign and justice ministries and the Dutch police and prosecution with the false charge, false witnesses and false testimonies against me. But the Dutch Public Prosecution Service has shamelessly proclaimed to the whole world in a press release that it cannot pursue the charge of inciting murder against me supposedly because it has run into a wall of fear preventing witnesses to testify against me.
That is a big lie. The wall of fear is definitely due to the brutal Arroyo regime and not due to me. No less than the Dutch Appellate Court declared in its judgment on my case in 2007 that there is a political context of unreliable witnesses against me and that it is doubtful whether I the defendant can get my own witnesses and cross-examine the witnesses against me in the Philippines. (Bulatlat.com)
