27311: Hermantin(News)Worst charges against Jean-Juste dismissed (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Leonie Hermantin

Miami Herald

Posted on Sat, Jan. 21, 2006


HAITI
Worst charges against Jean-Juste dismissed; he still faces others
Former Miami activist, and jailed Roman Catholic priest Gérard Jean-Juste was 
cleared of the most serious charges by a Haitian investigative judge.
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com

An investigative judge in Haiti has dropped murder and conspiracy charges 
against the Rev. Gérard Jean-Juste, saying there isn't enough evidence to 
indict the jailed Roman Catholic priest and former Miami activist.

But Jean-Juste, arrested six months ago in connection with the July murder of 
prominent Haitian journalist Jacques Roche, will have to stand trial on lesser 
charges of illegal weapons possession, according to an indictment issued this 
week by investigative judge Jean Péres Paul.

That charge, Paul told The Miami Herald on Friday, stems from Jean-Juste's 
refusal to provide the names of his security guard whom he authorized to carry 
five unlicensed guns.

The guns were found during a search of Jean-Juste's parish.

''He will have to go before a court and answer to that charge,'' Paul said in a 
telephone interview from Port-au-Prince.

But on the more serious charges of conspiring against the state by attempting 
to assassinate Haitian police officers during the bloody period known as 
Operation Baghdad, ''the investigation did not reveal any participation of 
Jean-Juste in any attempt or conspiracy, nor his complicity in premeditated 
murder of police officers,'' the judge ruled.

''I did not find anything,'' Paul said.

The same was true, he said, in the case of Roche, who was kidnapped July 10 and 
was found shot dead five days later in what some Haitians believe was the work 
of pro-Aristide gunmen.

Jean-Juste, an ardent supporter of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide who was arrested after he turned up at Roche's funeral, has longed 
denied any involvement in Roche's death.

Still despite the ruling, Jean-Juste remains in jail. Paul said he is not 
authorized to release Jean-Juste because of the indictment on the lesser 
charge.

''Another judge could release him on humanitarian grounds,'' he said.

In recent weeks, Jean-Juste supporters have stepped up demands for his release 
after medical tests showed that he suffers from leukemia. They've requested 
that the U.S.-backed interim government release him so he can travel to the 
United States for treatment.