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Thursday, March 08, 2007
Arrest warrant out for lawmaker linked to rebel purge
MANILA -- A Philippine judge has issued arrest warrants for a left-wing congressman and several alleged communist rebel leaders accused of involvement in the killings of dozens of suspected government spies in the 1980s, a lawyer said Wednesday.
Romeo Capulong, lawyer for Representative Satur Ocampo, said he would challenge the warrants in the Supreme Court.
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"These are all utterly baseless charges. He is innocent," Capulong said.
The charges stemmed from the discovery last year of a mass grave of victims of an alleged communist purge in Inopacan in central Leyte province, about 610 kilometers southeast of Manila.
The military, citing testimonies of several former communist New People's Army guerrillas, said the victims were suspected "deep penetration agents" who were ordered executed by the Communist Party central committee, led by party founder Jose Maria Sison, Ocampo and others.
Capulong said both Ocampo, president of the left-wing Bayan Muna party, and Sison were in military detention at the time.
He said Judge Ephraim Abando of the Regional Trial Court in Hilongos near Inopacan told him the arrest warrants were issued Tuesday. The judge could not immediately be reached for comment.
Capulong said he will file a complaint of grave abuse of discretion against the judge and state prosecutors with the Supreme Court.
"If any one of them acted impartially and studied the records of the case, they will find there is no basis to file the case," he said.
He said there was no forensic identification of the alleged purge victims and no evidence that Ocampo and the former guerrillas who implicated him had known each other.
Ocampo, a former communist leader, was arrested in 1976 under dictator Ferdinand Marcos but escaped from military detention in 1985. After Marcos was toppled in 1986, he led rebel negotiators in unsuccessful peace talks and was arrested again in 1988. He was freed in 1992 to continue the talks.
He later founded the Bayan Muna party, which has three seats in the House of Representatives.
Sison left the country months after being freed in 1986 and currently lives in exile in the Netherlands. The military claims he has reassumed his post as party chairman, which he denies. (AP)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Iloilo. (March 8, 2007 issue)
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