The Haitian-based media association, SOS Journalistes, Tuesday said it considers the situation “scandalous” that after 14 years, the case regarding the murder of journalist and political commentator, Jean Léopold Dominique, remains tied up in the judicial system.
Dominique, 70, the outspoken owner and director of the independent station Radio Haïti Inter, was shot dead by an unknown gunman On April 3, 2000. The station’s security guard guard, Jean Claude Louissaint. was also killed.
The SOS Journalistes in a statement said that “it is high time that the judges of the Court fully assume their responsibilities so that justice can finally be done in the case of the double assassination of Jean Dominique and his guardian Jean-Claude Louissaint”.
It said that former senator, Mirlande Liberus-Pavert, and eight other people had been charged in connection with the killings, but that they had been engaged in stalling the trial by arguing that the case should be transferred to another Court of Appeal, outside Port-au-Prince.
“And since then, more than 14 years later, the Court of Cassation…has still not managed to rule on Ms. Pavert’s request to entrust the case to a provincial Court of Appeal,” the media group said.
“SOS Journalists believes that the denial of justice has lasted too long and calls on the judges of the Court of Cassation to meet to urgently rule on the case which has been lying in the drawers of the Haitian justice system for 24 long years,” the media association said, adding that it was calling on all sectors of the society to condemn the existing situation.
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, Apr 3, CMC –
CMC/gd/ir/2024