Murder charges against Haiti’s priest, Father Jean Juste, are dropped

Human rights leader and Liberation Theology priest, Father Gerard Jean-Juste, was exonerated of all charges stemming from the slaying of a Haitian journalist in Haiti three years ago. The Catholic priest was held in limbo by Haiti's notorious and corrupt judicial system after spending more than a year behind bars on false charges for possessing illegal weapons.. He was released provisionally on humanitarian grounds for cancer in late 2005. On June 9, 2008, a Haitian magistrate ruled, despite continuing threats, there wasn't enough evidence to support charges against him.

JACQUELINE CHARLES of the Miami Herald, whose news outlet had at first repeated pronouncements that Jean-Juste was guilty, recently quoted former U.S.-installed prime minister Gerard Latortue as saying, " ''The justice system has done it's job,...I'm happy for him.'' All of this after the damage was done following Charles and the Miami Herald's pronouncements that "a warrant had been issued for Jean-Juste after Haitian authorities received intelligence that the priest was among suspected Lavalas leaders who had been organizing against his U.S.-backed interim government."

Flashpoints correspondent Kevin Pina, interviews Brian Concannon of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), and Father Jean-Juste to hear their side of the story along with an update of the current state of affairs in Haiti.

Listen to Part 1 - Brian Concannon [7M mp4 file]

Listen to Part 2 - Father Gerard Jean Juste [7.5M mp4 file]

Kevin Pina is a journalist and filmmaker who has been reporting about Haiti since 1991. He lived in Haiti from Jan. 1999 to Feb. 2006 and is currently the editor of the Haiti Information Project, a non-profit news agency providing news and analysis. Pina and the Haiti Information Project are recipients of the Project Censored 2008 Real News Award for Investigative Journalism. He can be heard regularly on the radio program Flashpoints broadcast on the Pacifica Network's flagship station KPFA in Berkeley, CA, or worldwide on the web at www.flashpoints.net.

 

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