27293: Hermantin(News)JEAN-JUSTE CALLED POLITICAL PRISONER (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Leonie Hermantin


Posted on Thu, Jan. 19, 2006



Latin American briefs


> From Miami Herald Wire Services

HAITI

JEAN-JUSTE CALLED POLITICAL PRISONER

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- A lawyer for the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste on Wednesday called 
his client a ''political prisoner'' and said medical tests confirm the Roman 
Catholic priest, jailed for six months in connection with the slaying of a 
Haitian journalist, has leukemia.

Supporters of Jean-Juste have for months insisted that he has cancer and should 
be sent to the United States for treatment.

''He's a political prisoner,'' attorney William Quigley said at a news 
conference in front of Jean-Juste's former parish church in Delmas, a suburb of 
the capital, Port-au-Prince. ``If that isn't bad enough, he is deathly ill with 
leukemia.''

Jean-Juste, 59, was arrested in July on suspicion of involvement in the 
abduction and slaying of journalist Jacques Roche that month. He has denied the 
charges.