By: Wad­ner Pierre

Jean-Juste is charged with the noto­ri­ously vague alle­ga­tion of “crim­i­nal asso­ci­a­tion”, as well as ille­gal pos­ses­sion of weapons. After ques­tion­ing, the court asked Jean-Juste to sum­ma­rize his defense.

In response to the charge of “crim­i­nal asso­ci­a­tions” he stated “As a priest my boss is Jesus, then the Bish­ops, and after them my peo­ple are my asso­ciates. I am not a mem­ber of an asso­ci­a­tion of ‘male­fac­tors’, but a mem­ber of an asso­ci­a­tion of bene­fac­tors, and in this asso­ci­a­tion Jesus is the boss.”

Regard­ing the sec­ond charge of ille­gal pos­ses­sion of weapons, he said: “I am a priest, and as a priest my job is to pray and help peo­ple who need help. When I worked for Pres­i­dent Aris­tide I had some secu­rity guards. After the coup in Feb­ru­ary 29 [2004] I lost the job and with that the secu­rity guards too. The Judge who heard my case before wrote that I said I have guns. Yes, I have guns: My Bible and my rosary are my guns. ” Jean-Juste then held up his rosary as sup­port­ers of Fanmi Lavalas, party of for­mer Pres­i­dent Jean-Bertrand Aris­tide, shouted out: “Jus­tice, jus­tice for Father Jean-Juste”.

In the end Judge Pierre Pierre decided not to dis­miss the charges. She claimed more time was needed to review the case. Jean-Juste retains his “pro­vi­sional” free­dom. The deci­sion is odd given the two and a half year dura­tion of the high pro­file case and the fact that the pros­e­cu­tors con­ceded that there was no evi­dence against Jean Juste.

Accord­ing to Con­can­non a hun­dred polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, much less promi­nent than Jean-Juste, con­tinue to lan­guish in Hait­ian pris­ons despite Preval’s elec­tion in 2006.

Jean-Juste needed police assis­tance to nav­i­gate through a large crowd of enthu­si­as­tic sup­port­ers out­side the court house.