"Depositions...support the theory that Aristide himself ordered" April 2000 murder of Haiti journalist Jean Dominique

Nine indicted for radio journalist Jean Dominique’s murder 14 years ago

Published on Monday 20 January 2014

Reporters Without Borders

(Read the original article here)

Reporters Without Borders responds with a mix of satisfaction and prudence to the news that nine people were indicted on 18 January in connection with Radio Haïti Inter owner Jean Dominique’s April 2000 shooting murder, in which the radio station’s security guard, Jean-Claude Louissaint, was also killed.

“We welcome this major judicial step, one that was quite unexpected after years of paralysis and impunity in a case that was handled successively by seven investigating judges,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“The investigation was relaunched on 8 May 2013 when former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who is reportedly linked to the nine accused, was questioned as a witness. The different degrees of responsibility must now be established with precision on the basis of the depositions of these nine people. Everyone’s cooperation is needed for this case to proceed. The truth must finally emerge, 14 years after Dominique’s murder.

“Like SOS Journaliste, we urge the authorities to do take the necessary steps to ensure that Myrlande Lubérisse appears in court in Haiti. A former senator for Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas party, she is named in Judge Yvikel Dabrésil’s report as the person who ordered Dominique’s murder. The authorities in the United States, where she now resides, should authorize her extradition if required.”

The indictments that Judge Dabrésil passed to the Port-au-Prince appeal court on 18 January also named former Port-au-Prince deputy mayor Harold Sévère and former Lavalas organizer and Vaudou priestess Anne “Sò Ann” Augustin, as well as alleged henchmen Frantz “Franco” Camille, Toussaint Mercidieu, Mérité Milien, Dimsley “Ti Lou” Milien (now dead, according to some sources), Jeudi “Guimy” Jean-Daniel and Markington Michel.

The last three escaped from prison in February 2005 after two years in detention.

The Dominique murder case has been politically very sensitive because of the alleged links to the polarizing figure of Aristide, who returned to Haiti in March 2011 after years in exile.

Some of the depositions taken by judges and incorporated into the 18 January report, including the deposition of former Aristide security chief Oriel Jean, support the theory that Aristide himself ordered Dominique’s murder because he posed a obstacle to Aristide’s return to power.

L’ancien président Aristide aurait ordonné l’assassinat de Jean Dominique/Neuf inculpations, dont celle de Mirlande Libérus Pavert, très proche de l’ancien leader lavalas  

Publié le vendredi 17 janvier 2014 

Radio Kiskyea

(Read the original article here)

Neuf personnes, dont des proches de l’ancien président Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ont été officiellement inculpées dans le dossier de l’assassinat le 3 avril 2000, du directeur de Radio Haïti Inter, Jean Léopold Dominique, et d’un gardien de la station, Jean-Claude Louissaint.

La sénatrice Mirlande Libérus Pavert, résidant actuellement aux Etats-Unis, ex-responsable de la Fondation Aristide pour la démocratie et très proche de l’ancien président Lavalas, est considérée comme l’auteure intellectuelle de l’acte quoique, dans le rapport du magistrat, il est précisé que des témoins-clé, dont l’ex-chef de la sécurité de M. Aristide, Oriel Jean, ont affirmé au Cabinet d’Instruction que ce dernier avait déclaré en leur présence que Mme Libérus avait pour mission de réduire Jean Dominique au silence pour qu’il n’ait pas à contrarier son projet de retour au pouvoir en l’année 2000.

La prêtresse du vodou Annette Auguste, alias Sô Ann, militante lavalas alliée actuellement au président Michel J. Martelly, l’ancien maire adjoint de la capitale Gabriel Harold Sévère, les nommés Frantz Camille alias Franco Camille, Jeudy Jean Daniel, Markenton Michel, Mérité et Dimsley Milien, Toussaint Mercidieu figurent sur la liste des inculpés.

Dans le rapport du juge, Jean-Bertrand Aristide et son ex-chef de sécurité Oriel Jean, sont considérés comme des témoins importants. [jmd/RK]

Eight years of inexplicable impunity in the murder of Jean Dominique

2 April 2008

Eight years of inexplicable impunity in the murder of Jean Dominique

Reporters sans frontières

(Read the original article here)

On the eve of the eighth anniversary of radio Haïti Inter director Jean Dominique’s murder, Reporters Without Borders today said it was baffled by the failure to render justice in this case, especially as the existence of a clear political and judicial will to combat impunity in the past two years has resulted in convictions in two other cases of murders of journalists.

Dominique and Haïti Inter’s caretaker, Jean-Claude Louissaint, were gunned down in the courtyard of the station on 3 April 2000.

“In the course of 2007, there were two convictions in the case of Brignol Lindor, the Radio Echo 2000 journalist who was murdered in Petit-Goâve in 2001, and one conviction in the case of Jacques Roche, the editor of the cultural section of the daily Le Matin, who was kidnapped and murdered in Port-au-Prince in 2005,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“At the same time, investigations into more recent cases led to quick arrests,” the press freedom organisation continued. “And on 10 August 2007, President René Préval, a friend of Dominique’s, installed an Independent Commission to Support Investigations into Murders of Journalists (CIAPEAJ) in the presence of his widow, Michèle Montas. The political and judicial will is there, and we now have proof that impunity is not inevitable.”

The organisation added: “This makes it all the harder to explain why the Dominique case is alone in going nowhere, eight years after his murder. Political factors may have had an impact but they offer no justification for the failure to ever solve this case.”

The investigation into the murder of Dominique and Louissaint concluded on 21 March 2003. It resulted in six men being charged and arrested: Dymsley “Ti Lou” Milien, Jeudi “Guimy” Jean-Daniel, Philippe Markington, Ralph Léger, Freud Junior Demarattes and Ralph Joseph. The charges against the last three were dismissed on 4 August 2003, after they appealed against the indictment.

Ti Lou, Guimy and Markington managed to escape during a prison mutiny in February 2005. Markington fled to Argentina, from where he contacted Reporters Without Borders to insist on his innocence. Ti Lou and Guimy went back to being gang leaders in the Port-au-Prince neighbourhood of Martissant. Ti Lou is now dead.

Former Port-au-Prince deputy mayor Harold Sévère (now in self-imposed exile) and Ostide “Douze” Pétion were arrested on 14 March 2004 as the suspected instigators of the murder. Annette Auguste, who was already being held in connection with other criminal activity, was also accused of involvement on 10 May 2005.

But none of these three has ever been interrogated. There has never been any attempt to verify presumed hit-man Ti Lou’s statement that he was paid 10,000 dollars to murder Dominique. And the death of two witnesses in suspicious circumstances has never been explained.

The supreme court ordered the case reopened on 29 June 2004. But it took nearly a year for a new investigating judge to be appointed, on 3 April 2005, exactly five years after the murder, and the new judge has not had access to the files and has not been given the necessary resources. In all, six judges have been in charge of the investigation, one after another.

The case suffered another setback on 4 April 2007 with the murder of Robert Lecorps, a businessman who was also suspected of involvement in Dominique’s murder. Police superintendent Daniel Ulysse, who was head of the judicial police at the time of Dominique’s murder, was arrested on 10 December 2007 on suspicion of having obstructed the investigation. But the police took nearly a month to execute the warrant for his arrest that was issued by judge Fritzner Fils-Aimé, now in charge of the case.

It has never been possible to corroborate the statements of former senator Dany Toussaint, who has often been cited as a suspect in the case. And since the start of this year, Judge Fils-Aimé has been trying to obtain a statement from senate vice-president Rudolph Boulos, the owner of the pharmaceutical company Pharval.

Shortly before his murder, Dominique spoke on the air about Afébril, a contaminated cough mixture produced and distributed by Pharval that allegedly caused the death of about 100 children in 1996. The CIAPEAJ, the commission created by President Préval, wrote to the senate president on 17 February calling for Senator Boulos to respond to the summonses issued by Fils-Aimé. In a reply one week later, Boulos refused on the grounds of “parliamentary immunity.”