Aristide did not speak as he dodged journalists and got into his car, a crowd of supporters in tow chanting his name and carrying his photo. Earlier, his team had announced a news conference and corralled waiting journalists into a sauna-like courtroom. But the move turned out to be a diversion to allow the ex-leader to leave without making a statement about his close-door testimony surrounding the unsolved assassination of agronomist-turned-famous journalist Jean Léopold Dominique.
Aristide’s rare public appearance Wednesday began when he arrived at 8:15 a.m. at the downtown courthouse to answer an investigative judge’s summons. At the time, the crowd numbered just hundreds and included elected parliamentarians. He stepped out of his police-escorted vehicle minutes before 9 a.m. and walked into the judge’s chambers.
Aristide is the latest person to be summoned by Haitian Investigative Judge Yvickel Dabresil, who has been trying to determine the “intellectual author” behind the assassination of Dominique and a guard. Both were gunned down 13 years ago in the courtyard of Dominique’s Radio Haiti-Inter in Port-au-Prince.
Dominique’s widow, journalist Michèle Montas, has been pushing for Haiti’s courts to find out who was behind the killings, and to hold them accountable.
Aristide became the second president called to give testimony in the case of Dominique, a once close ally. Last month, former President René Préval, a close friend of Dominique’s who reopened the case during his 2006-2011 presidency, spent about four hours inside the judge’s chambers. Afterward, he told The Miami Herald it was only natural for the judge to call him, given his close relationship with the activist.
While Aristide’s lawyers and spokeswoman have maintained that he has no problem appearing before the judge in the secret proceedings, others have called his invitation politically motivated by Haiti’s current government.
On Tuesday night, hundreds of Aristide loyalists stood vigil outside of his home in Tabarre, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, according to local journalists. The supporters called it a night of solidarity with the ex-president, who fled Haiti into exile in 2004 amid a bloody coup and stunned everyone with his 2011 return shortly before the country’s historical presidential run-off elections.
Weeks earlier, another former Haitian president, dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, had also returned after 25 years in exile in France — marking the first time in Haiti’s history that all of its living presidents are on the same island. Like Aristide and Préval, Duvalier has also had his own court appearance.
In February, a frail-looking Duvalier answered questions about his dictatorial past as part of an appeals hearing where he’s fighting to avoid standing trail on corruption charges and dozens of alleged victims of his regime also want the court to try him on human rights abuses. The appearance came after Duvalier had repeatedly refused to show up.
On Wednesday, as Aristide met with the judge behind closed door, thousands of supporters remained outside. A heavy police presence was reported by Haitian media outside the courthouse. Supporters also took to the streets in the northern city of Cap-Haitien.
The day before, tensions were high in the capital as police patrolled several slums where sympathizers had set up barricades and began burning tires. Earlier that same day, Haiti Police Chief Godson Orelus told a local radio station that all protests were being banned for Wednesday because police would be too busy escorting the former president and keeping the peace outside the courthouse.
While en route to the courthouse, Aristide spokeswoman Dr. Maryse Narcisse described those accompanying the police-escorted motorcade as “sympathizers” and not protesters. She later accompanied him inside.
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Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/08/3386931/ex-haitian-president-jean-bertrand.html#storylink=cpy