Two men get life for Haitian journalist Jacques Roche's murder

A Port-au-Prince court has sentenced to life two men, Alby Joseph and Chéry Beaubrun, for the abduction and murder of Jacques Roche, the head of the Le Matin newspaper’s arts and culture pages. Roche was kidnapped on 10 July 2005 and was found dead four days later.

Hundreds of mourners attend the funeral of Haitian journalist Jacques Roche, at the St Pierre Roman Catholic church in Petionville, an affluent suburb in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, July 21, 2005. Roche was murdered by kidnappers and found shot to death last week, five days after he was abducted while driving in the capital. Photo: AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos

Joseph, 22, a gang member based in the Port-au-Prince slum district of Solino, was found guilty of killing Roche. Beaubrun was found guilty of receiving money to guard him while he was held hostage. They were sentenced Thursday to forced labour for life under a May 2005 decree.

Their conviction came 20 days after an independent commission to support investigations into murders of journalists was created on the initiative of President René Préval and SOS Journalistes, an NGO. The commission was installed in the presence of UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon’s spokesperson, Michèle Montas, who is the widow of Jean Dominique, a radio journalists murdered in April 2000. Dominique’s killers have not been caught.

“We are relieved that justice has finally been rendered in the Roche case,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “This conviction and the creation of the commission on August 10 are positive signs of a desire by the political and judicial authorities to start combatting impunity. The other participants in Roche’s abduction who are still at large must also be brought to trial.”

An arts and culture columnist and Creole-language poet, Roche was abducted as he was driving through the Nazon district of Port-au-Prince. Despite intense negotiations with the family, in which the kidnappers demanded a ransom of $250,000, his handcuffed body was finally found four days later, bearing the marks of torture and bullet wounds.

Joseph named three other persons, former Solino gang boss François “Bibi” Daniel, Dérosiers “Tiyabout” Becker and someone identified only as “Gaetan” as accomplices to Roche’s abduction and murder. All three are currently detained for possession of firearms.

Gérard Jean Juste, a Catholic priest and close ally of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was also a suspect. He was arrested on July 22, 2005 but eventually released for health reasons and allowed to travel to the United States to receive treatment. He returned to Haiti in August. Several other suspects were arrested in August 2005 but have not yet been tried.