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26998: Hermantin(News)Family seeking release of priest (fwd)





Sun Sentinel

Family seeking release of priest


Haitian activist said to be sick and in need of treatment



By Tim Collie
Staff Writer

December 22, 2005



The South Florida-based family of one of Haiti's most important spiritual leaders pleaded Wednesday for his Christmastime release from the Haitian prison where he has been held for five months without being charged.

The Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste is sick and may have cancer, according to his doctors, and his family wants him flown to Miami for medical treatment. They appealed to both Haiti's interim government and the Bush administration, which has backed the government since it replaced ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.

"We want my brother to be released as soon as possible, today, for Christmas, so he can come here and get the treatment he needs," said Francine Delica, 53, Jean-Juste's sister. "So, I'm asking, please, release him so he can get the help he needs."

Jean-Juste, a charismatic priest often touted by his followers as a potential presidential candidate, has worked among the Haitian poor in both South Florida and the island nation for the past three decades.

During the 1980s, he was a leading refugee advocate in Miami who fought for immigration rights for Haiti's boat people. In the 1990s, he returned to Haiti and set up a parish in one of the capital city's poorest slums, where he helped feed hundreds of orphaned children every day.

But because he was a close ally of Aristide, he quickly ran afoul of the new government. He has been jailed since July because of suspected involvement in the abduction and slaying of a well-known local journalist. But no charges have been filed, and human rights groups have called him a political prisoner.

His doctors think he may have cancer because of a swelling of his neck, but government physicians who have examined him say he is not sick. Phone calls to a government spokesman in Port-au-Prince were not returned Wednesday.

"You can hear it in his voice -- he's not well," said Fayola Delica, 23, Jean-Juste's niece and a nurse. "It could be cancer ... it could be an infectious disease. We don't know because conditions in the jail are not sanitary. We want him here with family for Christmas. That's all we're asking."
Copyright © 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel