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Alert

Commissioner returns to country, accuses senator and police commissioner of blocking investigation into journalist's murder

(RSF/IFEX) - Joseph Guyler C. Delva, the president of an independent commission investigating the murders of journalists who was forced by repeated death threats to leave the country, returned to Port-au-Prince on 25 November 2007.

Delva, who presides over the Independent Commission for Supporting Investigations into Murders of Journalists (CIAPEAJ) fled on 9 November after being chased by a gang of unidentified men in the Pétion-Ville district of the capital.

He went first to the Dominican Republic and from there to Florida. He was greeted on arrival by Claudy Gassant, public prosecutor in Port-au-Prince, from whom Delva said he had obtained "a formal promise from the President of the Republic, René Préval, to protect his safety".

The journalist stated at a press conference on 26 November that Senator Rudolph Boulos was the man behind the threats made against him. He added that Boulos was the holder of a US passport, despite the fact that the 1987 Haitian Constitution bans dual-nationality.

Delva also suspects the senator and the police commissioner Daniel Ulysse of "blocking" the investigation into the 3 April 2000 murder of Jean Dominique, head of Radio Haiti Inter, a case that is being probed by the CIAPEAJ. Delva said the examining magistrate, Fritzner Fils-Aimé had issued a summons which had never been acted upon against Daniel Ulysse, and that Boulos refuses to respond to any judicial summons.