Former Aristide security chief: President said if journalist Jean Dominique "was not stopped," he would impede Aristide's return to power

Haïti-justice : Des révélations posthumes de l’ancien responsable de sécurité d’Aristide sur la mort du journaliste Jean Dominique mercredi 11 mars 2015 (Read original article here) P-au-P, 10 mars 2015 [AlterPresse] --- Une interview posthume a été diffusée, ce mardi 10 mars 2015, dans laquelle Oriel Jean, ancien chef de la sécurité de Jean Bertrand Aristide a fait de graves déclarations contre l’ex-président haïtien et ses proches partisans en rapport à la mort du journaliste Jean Dominique, assassiné le 3 Avril 2000.
Ces révélations ont été faites lors d’une interview accordée au journaliste Guyler C. Delva par Oriel Jean, environ un an avant lassassinat par balles de ce dernier dans l’après-midi du 2 mars à Delmas (périphérie nord).
Vers 1999-2000, il y aurait une offensive enclenchée par Aristide contre le journaliste Jean Dominique à cause de sa position critique contre le parti politique Fanmi lavalas, de l’ex-président, a expliqué Jean dans cette interview diffusée sur les ondes de la station privée Radio Caraïbes.
Les dossiers de corruption, de drogue et de gabegies administratives pointés du doigt par le journaliste, alors que René Préval était au pouvoir, auraient irrité Aristide à l’époque, a-t-il souligné.
« Le président Aristide avait pensé que si Jean Dominique n’est pas freiné, il sera un handicap pour son retour au pouvoir », a-t-il affirmé, précisant que ce n’est qu’après la mort du journaliste qu’il a compris le sens de ces propos.
« (…) Si nous ne faisons rien pour suspendre cela, et que personne ne le freine, notre retour au pouvoir en 2001 sera hypothéqué », a-t-il martelé, attribuant ces affirmations à l’ex-president.
Ce qui va envenimer la situation est le bruit qui courait à l’époque sur l’éventualité de la candidature à la présidence de Jean Dominique, a estimé Oriel Jean.

Selon lui, Aristide aurait vu d’un mauvais œil la mise sur pied du mouvement paysan Koze Pèp, promu entre autres par Jean Dominique. Il l’aurait considéré comme un parti politique lancé par Préval et Dominique pour le contrecarrer aux élections prévues à la fin de l’année 2000.
Oriel Jean a cité le nom de l’ancienne sénatrice du parti Fanmi Lavalas, Mirlande Libérus Pavert, qui aurait été chargée par Aristide pour faire taire Jean Léopold Dominique.
Dominique aurait été vu comme un « cancer » par l’ancienne sénatrice.
Ces déclarations d’Oriel Jean sont diffusées dans un contexte où un rapport a été émis, le 7 janvier 2015, sur le dossier de Jean Léopold Dominique par la chambre d’instruction criminelle de la cour d’Appel de Port-au-Prince.
Ce rapport désigne l’ancienne sénatrice Mirlande Libérus Pavert, comme « auteure intellectuelle » du double assassinat du journaliste et du gardien de sa station Radio Haiti Inter, Jean-Claude Louissaint. Huit autres personnes, dont des militants lavalas, sont inculpées dans l’assassinat. L’ancien maire adjoint de Port-au-Prince, Gabriel Harold Sévère, Annette Auguste (Sô Àn), Frantz Camille, Jeudy Jean Daniel, Markenton Michel, Toussaint Mercidieu, Mérité et Dimsley Milien sont mentionnés dans ce document.
Dans le cadre de l’enquête sur l’assassinat du journaliste, pas moins de 19 témoins et inculpés ont été entendus à la Cour d’Appel de Port-au-Prince entre le 10 février 2011 et le 5 juin 2013, parmi eux les anciens présidents René Garcia Préval et Jean Bertrand Aristide respectivement les 7 mars et 8 mai 2014.
Mirlande Libérus Pavert est considérée comme auteure intellectuelle du fait qu’elle ne s’est jamais présentée au cabinet d’instruction après l’audition le 25 janvier 2013 d’Oriel Jean.
L’ancien président Aristide a contesté les déclarations d’Oriel Jean dans sa deposition en mai 2014. « Mirlande Libérus est innocente. L’ancienne sénatrice de la République ne peut être victime de ces mensonges qui ne doivent engager que leur auteur [Oriel Jean] » a déclaré Aristide selon la lecture du rapport de Dabrésil faite par la greffière Juliette Garçon Véus à la Cour d’Appel de Port-au-Princ, le 17 janvier 2014. [emb gp apr 10/03/2015 16 : 30]

Philippe Markington, key witness in April 2000 murder of Radio Haiti's Jean Dominique and Jean Claude Louissaint, extradited to Haiti from Argentina

Extradition par l’Argentine d’un témoin-clé dans l’affaire Jean Dominique / Jean CLaude Louissaint 

(Read the original article here)

Philippe Markenton est désormais aux ordres de la justice haitienne Publié le samedi 21 juin 2014 Le nommé Philippe Markenton dont le nom a été maintes fois cité dans le dossier Jean Dominique/ Jean Claude Louissaint, a été rapatrié samedi après-midi d’Argentine où il s’était réfugié depuis plusieurs années, à bord d’un vol de la ligne aérienne panaméenne Copa.  

Des membres de la Direction centrale de police judiciaire (DCPJ) avaient été dépêchés en Argentine pour escorter Markenton de Buenos Aires à Port-au-Prince où il est désormais à la disposition de la justice.  

Markenton faisait l’objet d’un mandat international et, de ce fait, était activement recherché par Interpol, aprrend-on de sources judiciaires. Les recherches allaient s’intensifier après le rapport à la Cour d’Appel de Port-au-Prince du juge instructeur Ivickel Dabrézil sur l’état d’avancement du dossier et les inculpations éventuelles, dont celles de proches de l’ancien président Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ce dernier est lui-même implicitement visé dans le rapport qui fait référence au témoignage de son ancien chef de sécurité, Oriel Jean, selon qui il aurait instruit la sénatrice Mirlande Libérus de régler son compte à Jean Dominique. Les avocats de Mme Libérus ont interjeté appel contre le rapport.  

Les premières instructions du dossier de l’assassinat de Jean Dominique et de Jean Claude Louissaint le 3 avril 2000 à Radio Haiti, avaient mis en cause Philippe Markenton pour l’ensemble des informations qu’il disposait sur le double meurtre, ce qui avait laissé croire qu’il ne pouvait en être tout à fait étranger. La police judiciaire aurait à l’époque manifesté un certain intérêt pour lui à l’instigation d’une ambassade étrangère qui l’utilisait comme informateur et à qui il aurait fourni un luxe de détails sur le double assassinat.  

De nombreux autres présumés témoins de l’assassinat de Jean Dominique ont mystérieusement disparu ou ont trouvé la mor

"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]

Attacks against Radio Télé Ginen

Journalists from the Haitian news outlet Radio Télé Ginen attempting to cover the May 8 court appearance of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide - who was being questioned in connection with the April 2000 murder of journalist Jean Dominique - were reportedly attacked, as was their vehicle, by Mr. Aristide's partisans. Both the Association des Médias Indépendants d’Haïti (AMIH) and the Association Nationale des Médias Haïtiens (ANMH) have condemned this incident, which is reminiscent of the hostility and violence towards the press displayed by Mr. Aristide's government and his Fanmi Lavalas political party before and during his 2001-2004 tenure in office.

For the AMIH and ANMH declarations (in French), please see the following links: L’AMIH condamne aussi l’attaque de manifestants pro-Lavalas contre Radio Télé Ginen and L’ANMH condamne l’agression contre Télé Ginen.

Video footage of some of the attacks in embedded below.

Response regarding a few points

Recently, several friends forwarded me some of the exchanges that have been taking place about me on the Corbett list. I wanted to take a moment to respond to a few points.

1. The disappearance of the Nanoune Myrthil’s infant

For my part, I first heard about the 29 February 2000 disappearance of Nanoune Myrthil's baby from the General Hospital when Radio Haiti Inter reported on it on 21 June 2001. In a report by Jean-Delec Mezy, the station recounted how a nurse, Yanick Augustin, had been accused of being involved in the disappearance and was slated to appear before a judge that month. I recall that this appearance was postponed several times, and that there were several emotional public appeals by Nanoune Myrthil herself that she and her missing child be given justice. At the time, there much controversy of what exactly had happened to the child and whether or not official pressure was being brought to bear - as it was in the investigation of the slaying of prominent journalist Jean Dominique - to keep the inquiry from reaching some sort of resolution. Some of the transcript of that broadcast can be read here.

Apropos of that, on 3 March 2002, in her editorial, “Is Another Assassination of Jean Dominique about to Take Place?” also on Radio Haiti Inter, Dominique's widow, Michele Montas, bemoaned the fact that “all the resources, i.e. logistical, technical, and financial” made available in the Dominique investigation by the Preval government had been cancelled by the Aristide government, and that “ so were the resources made available for other investigations such as those about the poisoning of children with diethyl glycol or the kidnapping of baby Nanoune Myrtil at the General Hospital.”

During the same address, the full text of which can be read here, Montas said of the Aristide government the following:

The regime is affected with a dangerous gangrene. Principles and moral guidelines are compromised every day by political opportunism. Those ideals shared by Jean (Dominique), including a generous but rigorous socialism, respect for liberties within the framework of democracy, nationalist independence, based on a long history of resistance, those ideals that Jean used to call ‘Lavalas’ are trampled every day in this balkanized State where weapons make right, and where hunger for power and money takes precedence over the general welfare, causing havoc on a party which, paradoxically, controls all the institutional levers of the country. Our concerns run deep, since the cracks are widening and the building will eventually collapse over all of us.

How right she was, it turned out.

In July 2003, Johnny Occilius made his now-famous declaration on Radio Kiskeya of So Anne’s alleged-involvement with the baby’s disappearance and death, followed one month later by former Lavalas deputy mayor of Port-au-Prince Jean-Michard Mercier, who supported in every detail Occilius’ account and expanded upon it. Sonia Desrosiers, the widow of Roland Francois - the Port-au-Prince gang leader who was kidnapped and killed in July 2003 - then gave her own account to Radio Vision 2000. Readers and listeners are free to make up their own minds about the veracity or not of the various explanations of the child's disappearance.

In my view, at least, the episode in no way reflects upon vodou, Haiti’s poignant spiritual blend of its African and European heritage, as a whole. I have enjoyed attendance at many vodou ceremonies around the country since 1997, and urge other journalists to treat the belief system with interest and respect given its political significance to the country.

2. The violence in Martissant/Grand Ravine

Jeb Sprague, whom I have never met or spoken to, first made himself known to me in November 2005, when he emailed to me, unsolicited, a graphic picture of the bullet-riddled, blood-soaked bodies of a Haitian mother and her children along with a smiley-face emoticon and a semi-coherent tirade against myself, the World Bank and the Inter-American Dialogue.

When Sprague writes of the 2006 violence in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Martissant that I "essentially ignored the role of the largest and most violent armed group in the area at that time: Lame Ti Manchet,” this is false in several aspects.

As I wrote in an extensively sourced February 2007 article for AlterPresse "The terrible truth about Martissant," the chain of events that Sprague describes bears no resemblance at all to the reality of what journalists such as myself and the reporters of Haiti’s radio stations witnessed on the ground there in the neighborhoods of Grand Ravine, Ti Bois and Descartes during the summer of 2006.

Nevertheless, in both that article and my August 2006 report "Storm of Killing in Neighbourhood Has Wide Implications for Nation," there is in-depth description and analysis of the significant role of the Lame Ti Manchet in the violence.

I understand that on-the-ground reportage may be more time-consuming and at times put one at greater personal risk than simply commenting upon issues from the safety of academia in the United States and Europe, but I really urge Sprague to arise from his desk and spend a bit of time on the ground in Haiti, learning the language, speaking with and traveling among its people. I think it would do wonders towards educating him from having a less internet-based knowledge of the daily lives of the country’s people.

3. Jean-Remy Badio

When Sprague writes, in regards to the killing of Jean-Remy Badio that I "(and Reporters Without Borders likewise) failed to properly attribute the major suspects of this assassination,” this is also false.

I was very happy and proud to lend my voice in solidarity with my courageous Haitian and Caribbean colleagues in aiding in the drafting the Association of Caribbean Media’s “ACM calls for action on Badio killing” on 30 January 2007, the text of which can be read here. The press release read in part as follows:

The Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) is calling on Haitian authorities to move swiftly to bring the killers of Jean-Remy Badio to justice and wants the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to do more to end the isolation of this Member State... It is especially distressing to note that that Mr. Badio’s murder results from his work in reporting on the operations of organized gangs in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Martissant.

4. Evel Fanfan and AUMOHD

When Sprague writes that I have critizied the work of Evel Fanfan and his organization, the Association des Universitaires Motivés pour une Haiti de Droits (AUMOHD), this is also false. I have never written a line, positive or negative, in reference Fanfan or AUMOHD.

5. Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Regarding Jean-Bertrand Aristide: Though I believe his government exacerbated many of the problems confronting Haiti and lost a golden chance to help move the country forward, he was a symptom, rather than the sole cause, of Haiti’s greater malaise. Impunity, corruption, environmental degradation and an upside-down economic system are the true plagues that are killing Haiti as a state, plagues that many in my own country have unfortunately been all-too-happy to cast their lot in with for a few pieces of gold. Until these corrosive elements in Haiti are definitively addressed and the malefactors both Haitian and foreign prosecuted and made to answer for their crimes, there will be more Duvaliers, Aristides and others like them, and whether called macoute or attache or chimere, their economically desperate and easily-disposable (in their eyes) enforces will continue to operate with the same modus operandi.

Every time I visit Haiti, I see thousands of decent, dedicated people - part of grassroots organizations such as Fonkoze, the Mouvman Peyizan Nasyonal Kongre Papay and others - working towards their country’s reconstruction. A handful of of self-appointed American and European activists can continue to rage all they want on the interent in support of the work of Mr. Aristide’s fabulously compensated American lobbyists, but the violence and vehemence of their rhetoric doesn’t make what they have to say say any more true.

Best regards from Mardi Gras,

MD

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.”

Democracy returns, but media continues to be under threat in Haiti

I have a fairly extensive response to some of the tumult in Haiti surrounding Radio-Tele Ginen and Reuters correspondent Joseph Guyler “Guy” Delva on my regular blog, which can be read here.