Former Security Chief Of Former Haiti President Shot And Killed

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – The Independent Commission to Support Investigations into Murders of Journalists (CIAPEAJ), Tuesday, condemned the murder of Oriel Jean, the former security chief of ex-President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was shot and killed here on Monday.

CIAPEAJ, together with the Secretariat of SOS Journalistes, said Jean’s killing was an “obviously planned assassination of a key witness in the murder case on April 3, 2000, of the most famous Haitian journalist and political commentator, Jean Leopold Dominique,” a critic of the former head of state.

Police spokesman, Gary Desrosiers, confirmed that Jean had been shot and killed not far from the international airport. The police said he was shot twice by three men on a motorcycle.

CIAPEAJ president, Guy Delva.

Jean had become infamous for his testimony in U.S. courts a decade ago that helped take down key figures in Haiti’s drug trafficking underworld.

The media organisations said that Jean had “constantly been the subject of death threats from individuals close to Aristide, whom he had accused of ordering the murder of Jean Dominique.

“The death threats were so direct that SOS Journalistes and the CIAPEAJ had to intervene with relevant authorities to seek and obtain special protection for Oriel Jean, who had always expressed its willingness and commitment to testify in criminal court in the trial of Jean Dominique’s case.”

CIAPEAJ president, Guy Delva, in a statement, said that the murder “is a big blow to the case that is being examined at the Supreme Court, after some close allies of Aristide…have challenged all the magistrates of the Court of Appeal, in the context of a delaying tactic.

“SOS Journalistes and the Commission working on cases of murdered journalists, the CIAPEAJ, appreciate the diligence with which the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) initiated the investigation into the murder of Oriel Jean and the deployment of a significant number of agents who are engaged in pursuit of the murderers of the key witness,” he added.

He said he was also urging the authorities to continue the probe into the murders of Jean Dominique, as well as his gatekeeper, Jean-Claude Louissant.