25079: Ruller (comment) Re 25076 on Raboteau Ruling (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Anne Fuller <affuller3@yahoo.com>

I haven’t read the decision itself, but the statement by RNDDH (former
NCHR-Haiti) quotes from it, and notes, as Mike says, that it was only the
convicted persons who were physically present at the trial whose
convictions have been overturned.  The highest ranking soldier among this
group is former Captain Castera Cenafis.  Jean Pierre (Jean Tatoune) is
also concerned.

The convictions of Cedras, Emmanuel Constant and others, who were convicted
in absentia and thus according to different rules, stand.

This does not improve my reading of the decision.  If you look objectively
at the court data, you see that there was strong eyewitness testimony
against those who were convicted in person.  For many of the higher-ups who
were never alleged to have been present in Gonaives at the time, the link--
the passing of orders for the massacre­the evidence was less convincing.

The Supreme Court has thus thrown out, on a technicality, the best part of
the best trial seen in Haiti in recent years.  RDDNH urges judicial
authorities to organize a new trial­-but in the current state of things,
this is a fantasy.

Anne Fuller