MANILA, Philippines -- An elated Jose Maria Sison has hailed a Dutch court's latest ruling on the murder case against him as a “triumph of justice” that proved the “baselessness of the charges.”

“The decision of the Court of Appeals is the triumph of justice,” the founding chair of the Communist Party of the Philippines said in a statement from The Netherlands, where he has lived in exile since 1987.

The Court of Appeals on Wednesday threw out a prosecution appeal against a lower court's order to set the 68-year-old Sison free in connection with the investigation of the murders of comrades of Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara.

The ruling, however, does not preclude him from being prosecuted on murder charges.

Sison said that the appellate court's decision, like the earlier ruling by the District Court of The Hague, had pointed to the lack of direct and sufficient evidence against him.

“They have exposed the baselessness of the charge against me in fact and law,” he said, even as he voiced hope that the Dutch prosecutors would drop the “false and politically motivated charge” that he had ordered the killings.

“It categorically states that there is no direct evidence to link me to the aforesaid killings and that I am not a criminal.”

Sison said he hoped the prosecutors would return to the National Democratic Front of the Philippines the computers, cameras, publications, papers, digital files, and other things seized during the August 28 raid on the homes of NDFP consultants.

The chief political consultant of the NDFP had been accused of giving orders from The Netherlands for the killing of Kintanar in 2003, and Tabara, together with son-in-law Stephen Ong, in 2004, in Manila. He had denied the charges.

According to Sison, the appellate court's ruling said that the charge against him ``must be seen in their political context and that the statements given by the various witnesses cannot be simply accepted as reliable.”

``It also expresses its doubt as to my ability to fully exercise my right to cross-examine the prosecution witnesses in view of the terrible human rights situation and the dangers to my lawyers,” he said.