MANILA – Founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines CPP Jose Maria Sison has described his 17-day solitary confinement at the Scheveningen prison in The Netherlands as “extremely painful and humiliating.”

In a statement he issued in Utrecht, the Netherlands after his release from jail September 13, Sison revealed that he was subjected to severe interrogation under overheated lamps for two to three hours every day during his more than two weeks of confinement.

“The ordeal is acute because I am innocent of the false and politically motivated charge leveled against me. . . . You cannot imagine how happy I am [to be released from prison]," the 68-year-old founder of the CPP said. But he said his experience in prison did not dampen his spirit but instead strengthened his resolve to obtain “national freedom, human rights, social justice and an enduring peace in the Philippines."

Sison was arrested by the International Crime Investigation Team of the Dutch National Criminal Investigation Department on August 28 for allegedly ordering the assassination of his former political associates, Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara, in the Philippines.

Dutch authorities said Sison was released because of lack of evidence that he was directly involved in the killings. It is prohibited under Dutch laws for anybody to order the killing of anyone in a foreign land. Sison, a former university professor, established the CPP in 1968. The next year the party’s armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), launched a Maoist-style armed campaign in the Philippines that still continues. Relatives of Kintanar and Tabara filed criminal charges against Sison in The Netherlands, saying he gave orders for the murders of Kintanar and Tabara. Kintanar, a former leader of the NPA, was murdered on January 23, 2003, while Tabara, another top NPA official, was assassinated along with his son-in-law Stephen Ong on September 26, 2006. Sison denied involvement in the murders, saying that doing such acts goes against his moral and political principles. He said he will continue to live in The Netherlands with his wife and his two children. They have been staying there since 1987.

“I feel somehow vindicated in choosing The Netherlands as my place of refuge from persecution in the Philippines. I also wish to thank the Dutch, Filipino and other people for their solidarity and support," he said. “Consequent to the release order of the Rechtsbank, I gain some confidence in the Dutch legal system. I have the opportunity to prove my innocence and continue to benefit from fair play,’ he added. Sison laughed off reports of another amnesty program being offered by the Philippine government to initiate peace with the communist rebels.

He pointed out that ‘legitimate revolutionary forces will not bite into localized peace efforts.’ The Dutch prosecution panel is expected to appeal its case against Sison in the next three to four weeks but the communist leader said he believes that his camp now has the legal edge following his release. In Manila, Norberto Gonzales, the national security adviser, said it is too early to draw a conclusion on the impact of Sison’s release on the Arroyo Administration’s amnesty proclamation for communist rebels. “The negotiations have been suspended for long time and our local officials think they can do it at the local level. We will continue the amnesty program with the help of local officials," Gonzales said.