Issued on June 20, 2024, the order was sent to the Port-au-Prince Prosecutor’s Office yesterday. Judge Jean Wilnet Morin was in charge of the case. 45 people are being sent to the criminal court without jury assistance, including powerful gang leader Jimmy Chérisier alias Barbecue, former MICT general manager Fednel Monchéry and Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan, former departmental delegate of the West.
During this massacre perpetrated on the night of November 13 to 14, 2018, 75 people were killed, 15 women raped (gang rapes) including minors.
Following denunciations by human rights organizations including the RNDDH, the American Treasury Department sanctioned these defendants on December 10, 2020.
According to the conclusions of the RNDDH investigation, the massacre at La Saline had a political motive. It was allegedly perpetrated by the government of Jovenel Moïse to stifle the protest movements whose base was this poor neighborhood known to be close to Lavalas. Two weeks before the massacre, several organizations involved in the mobilization for the accountability of the squandering of the Petrocaribe Funds, including the SDP and Nou Pap Dòmi, had organized a press conference in the heart of La Saline to launch a demonstration.
Gang leader Jimmy Chérisier, Fednel Monchéry and Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan have always denied their involvement in the massacre.
By Gazette Haiti News
