The hemisphere free-press organization expressed its fears in a letter to Aristide signed by its president, Danilo Arbilla, and the chairman of its Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Rafael Molina, that Judge Claudy Gassant might withdraw from the case after receiving threats and harassment, as other judges had previously done for the same reason.
Gassant reported that police officers assigned to protect him had been transferred while the investigation was still under way and had not been replaced. Arbilla, editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, news weekly Búsqueda, and Molina, of Ahora magazine, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, declared that "the continuation of the inquiries without due protection or guarantees of the safety of those carrying them out could jeopardize the case."
The IAPA called on Aristide "to make the necessary resources available for the protection of witnesses, relatives of the victim and Judge Gassant, in order to ensure that those behind the murder of Mr. Dominique and those who actually committed it are brought to justice." The death of Dominique, a prominent journalist and director of the Radio Haiti Inter radio station in the Haitian capital, was investigated earlier this year by the IAPAs Rapid Response Unit.
In its letter to Aristide, the IAPA stressed how important it was that "the judiciary enjoy sufficient freedom of action, without external pressures, in order to be able to identify those responsible for the murder … and prevent any kind of interference in the investigation and prevent any action that could jeopardize the independence of the legal proceedings."
The Association also told Aristide of its interest in sending a delegation to Haiti to provide support for the official inquiries in the Dominique case and to seek his signature to the Declaration of Chapultepec, an IAPA-sponsored document detailing principles of free speech and press freedom, in which he had publicly expressed an interest. Adding his signature would be "a great show of support for democracy and freedom of the press in Haiti," it added.
*See details of the Jean Leopold Dominique murder case at www.impunidad.com/cases/jeanleopoldS.html
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