Politics
Haiti: Former president Aristide appears before judge to provide evidence in murder case
Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, became Haiti’s first democratically elected leader in 1990, but was twice violently ousted from office and despatched into exile in 1991 and 2004.
He was last seen in public in March 2011, on the morning he landed back in Port-au-Prince after seven years of exile in South Africa. Aristide returned just two months after another former president, Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier, returned from a long exile, and it was feared their presence would upset political stability as the country struggled to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake that killed an estimated 200,000 people and left more than one million people homeless.
Aristide’s 2011 arrival came just days before a presidential election runoff between President Michel Martelly and another candidate, and Wednesday’s appearance before the judge comes as hotly anticipated municipal and parliamentary elections are being planned.
“President Aristide is ready to participate in justice,” Mario Joseph, Aristide’s long-time attorney, told reporters before Wednesday’s proceedings.
Joseph expressed concern that the former president’s participation in the Dominique investigation was being used for political means.
Dominique’s murder was especially shocking at the time as he was a close friend of Préval, and a former supporter of Aristide.
Although Aristide has an enormous popular base, particularly through his political party Fanmi Lavalas (Lavalas Family), he is still a deeply divisive figure and any potential appearance of the former president carries security concerns.
