MANILA, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Philippine leftists said on Monday that armed men had abducted a top communist rebel last week but both military and police denied they had arrested him. Leo Velasco, head of the communist New People's Army, was abducted on Feb. 19 in Cagayan de Oro City on the southern island of Mindanao, said Luis Jalandoni, the Netherlands-based spokesman of the left-wing National Democratic Front. He said witnesses had seen armed men take Velasco at gunpoint and whisk him off to an unmarked van. Jalandoni said in a statement that Velasco had been taken by security forces in violation of immunity given to senior rebel leaders involved in stalled peace negotiations with Manila. "I protest in the strongest terms possible the abduction and enforced disappearance of Leo Velasco, consultant in the peace negotiations," Jalandoni said in a letter sent to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo dated Feb. 26. Senior military and police officials said Velasco did not enjoy immunity since the peace talks were suspended in August 2004, but maintained he was not in their custody. Negotiations between the government and the National Democratic Front were suspended after Manila declined to persuade the United States and Western European states to remove the rebels from terrorism blacklists. The Philippines has been battling communist rebels since 1969 in a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people. The communist New People's Army has about 7,000 fighters and is active in 69 of 81 provinces. Military chief General Hermogenes Esperon has told Reuters communist rebels are the biggest threat to security in the country but will be rendered inconsequential within three years.
