25794: Severe(pub) Gerard Jean Juste in "protective custody" (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Constantin Severe <csevere@hotmail.com>

Haiti official accuses Aristide backers in murder
Thu Jul 21, 2005 11:17 PM ET

By Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - A government minister speaking at the funeral 
on Thursday of a Haitian journalist kidnapped and killed this month blamed the 
slaying on supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Police jailed a prominent Aristide supporter, the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, later 
in the day for possible involvement in the killing of the journalist, Jacques 
Roche, who was head of the culture section of the Haitian daily newspaper Le 
Matin.

Roche was abducted on July 10. His mutilated body was found last Thursday on a 
street in Port-au-Prince.

During a speech at the end of the funeral in a suburb of the capital, Haitian 
Culture Minister Magalie Comeau Denis said armed gangs loyal to Aristide killed 
Roche to back demands the former president return to Haiti.

Aristide was forced to flee the country on Feb. 29, 2004, in the face of an 
armed revolt and U.S. and French pressure to quit. His administration was 
replaced by a U.S.-backed interim government.

"They killed Jacques and abandoned his body on the streets for all of us to 
see, in order to frighten us," Denis said from the church's pulpit. "We are not 
afraid. We will never be afraid."

Denis accused Aristide's Lavalas Family party of trying to disrupt the 
electoral process. The interim government plans to hold national elections in 
the fall.

At the church, a group of Aristide opponents attacked Jean-Juste, a Roman 
Catholic priest and leading figure in Aristide's Lavalas Family party, as he 
arrived to pay tribute to the slain journalist.

Jean-Juste was led to safety by Haitian police and U.N. peacekeeping troops but 
was held at a police station and questioned for the rest of the day. On 
Thursday evening, he was locked in a cell on suspicion of involvement in 
Roche's murder, said Mario Joseph, Jean-Juste's lawyer.

Last October, Jean-Juste was hauled away from his church while he was feeding 
street children and was jailed for nearly seven weeks. His imprisonment rallied 
to his side human rights groups, including Amnesty International, which called 
on the Haitian government to improve its human rights record.

Joseph called the latest allegations "ridiculous" and said Jean-Juste was out 
of the country at the time of the killing.

A spokesman for Aristide's party, James Derozin, rejected any attempt to link 
Lavalas to the killing.

"If anyone committing violence and other criminal activities claims he is a 
member of Lavalas Family, we say it is not true," Derozin said. "Those who 
believe in violence are our opponents, because they used violence to overthrow 
President Aristide, a democratically elected leader."