By Geor­gia East

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

June 21, 2008

The Court of Appeals in Haiti cleared The Rev. Ger­ard Jean-Juste, a Catholic priest who cham­pi­oned the plight of Hait­ian refugees, of all remain­ing charges in con­nec­tion with the 2005 mur­der of a promi­nent jour­nal­ist and poet.

“I feel great. I’m prais­ing God more and I’m serv­ing his peo­ple,” said Jean-Juste on Fri­day from Haiti. “I was con­fi­dent that I would be exon­er­ated because I’ve been through so many tri­als before.”

Jean-Juste, 62, is an influ­en­tial advo­cate for Haiti’s poor and a vocal sup­porter of for­mer Pres­i­dent Jean-Bertrand Aris­tide, who fled the coun­try in 2004. The U.S.-backed interim gov­ern­ment jailed Jean-Juste in 2005 in con­nec­tion with the killing of Jacques Roche. A judge cleared Jean-Juste of homi­cide but indicted him on weapons pos­ses­sion and crim­i­nal con­spir­acy charges. Those remain­ing charges were dis­missed last week, said Brian Con­can­non, one of the priest’s lawyers.

Jean-Juste had been out of prison since 2006, when he was per­mit­ted to leave the coun­try for med­ical treat­ment. He divides his time between Miami and Haiti, where he is over­see­ing a food dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­gram in Port-au-Prince.

Geor­gia East can be reached at geast@sun-sentinel.com or 954–356-4629.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel