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