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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.