Jean Dominique forgotten: SOS Journalistes denounces unacceptable denial of justice

PORT-AU-PRINCE.___ 25 years already! How time flies. It was a Monday morning, just before 7 AM. The country stopped. Life too. Jean Dominique was assassinated. In the courtyard of his station. The news spread like wildfire. An earthquake for the Nation.

25 years! The assassins, perpetrators, accomplices, and masterminds enjoy the most blatant impunity. Jean Dominique's family, his relatives, media and journalist associations, and Haitian society in general painfully observe the failure of Haitian justice in this emblematic case.

25 years later, true to their custom, press associations remember this heinous act at Radio Haiti Inter. This April 3, a denunciation note, bearing the signature of its Secretary-General, Joseph Guyler C. Delva, SOS Journalistes states with sadness and indignation the persistent blockage of the investigation at the Court of Cassation, concerning the assassination of the Journalist CEO of Radio Haiti Inter.

The association believes that this is a deliberate decision by the Transitional Presidential Council (CPT), the government of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, as well as their predecessors, and all the judges of last resort, to block the Jean Dominique case, in order to protect very influential political figures, represented at the highest level of the current executive.

*A brief recap of the significant facts in this case*

Indeed, it is the role of the government commissioner to the Court of Cassation to ensure that the case follows its normal course; however, for about a dozen years, the latter has done nothing to facilitate the issuance of a long-awaited ruling, criticizes SOS Journalistes, which states it has never dropped the case since the infamous April 3, 2000.

Before being transmitted to the Court of Cassation, following an appeal filed by one of the accused, Mirlande Libérus-Pavert, the report of the investigating judge at the time, Yvickel Dabrézil, had been submitted to the Court of Appeal on January 17, 2014.

Former Senator Mirlande Liberus-Pavert, along with eight other individuals involved in the assassination, systematically rejected all possible compositions at the capital's Court of Appeal. They used dilatory tactics, arguing that the case should be transferred to another Court of Appeal outside Port-au-Prince.

It is also important to recall the statements made by former security chief of former President Aristide, Oriel Jean, who – before his spectacular assassination on March 2, 2015 – had named Aristide, his former boss, as the mastermind behind Jean Dominique's assassination.

*The Jean Do case, a perfect illustration of the impunity system, according to SOS Journalistes*

Now that all possible remedies have been exhausted, SOS Journalistes, starting this April 3, 2025, intends to take further steps to hold the government and judicial authorities accountable, who, according to the organization, are supposed to be well-versed in the Jean Dominique case.