Having appealed his conviction for defamation (June 6, 2023) in the case of the former president of the Haitian Football Federation (FHF), Yves “Dadou” Jean Bart, splashed by a story of rape, including against minors, French journalist Romain Molina won his case at the Paris Court of Appeal on June 20, 2024.
Indeed, according to the court documents, copies of some of which were provided to us by Molina’s lawyer, Mr Mokhtar Abdennouri, the journalist who raised the alarm about the sexual abuse allegedly committed by Dr Yves Jean Bart, “had not committed any civil wrongdoing”.
“Romain Molina had not committed any civil fault for defamation with regard to the remarks made in the article in the newspaper “The Guardian” of April 30, 2020″ concluded the Paris Court of Appeal, emphasizing that Molina had provided “proof that he had serious and sufficient evidence to believe that he could legitimately make the remarks pursued against Yves Jean Bart.”
An “important” decision for Romain Molina, who the Paris Court of Appeal judged to have had “a serious factual basis” to bring to light the alleged sexual abuse of the former president of the FHF.
“This court decision also legitimizes the words of the many witnesses and victims who placed their trust in my Client and who had the courage to bring this sordid affair of extreme gravity to light,” commented Mokhtar Abdennouri, Romain Molina’s lawyer, still believing in the guilt of Dadou Jean Bart.
It should be recalled that, in the context of this defamation case, Romain Molina was found guilty, on June 6, 2023, of defamation against the former president of the Haitian football federation, Yves Jean-Bart, by the criminal chamber of the Paris court. He was ordered to reprocess, within 15 days, the “defamatory comments in his videos broadcast on the YouTube platform” and to pay a fine of 500 euros in addition to 2,000 euros in legal costs, without forgetting 1 euro as damages claimed by the former strongman of the FHF.
The new court decision therefore calls into question certain things in the case for which the French sports journalist was convicted. Molina’s lawyer told us: “It is nevertheless interesting to note that while the judgment of the Paris Criminal Court partially convicted my client at first instance, it already noted that he had a factual basis allowing him to benefit from good faith with regard to the press article of April 30, 2020.”
Indeed, the Paris Criminal Court had stated in its decision: “Under these conditions, it should be considered that Romain Molina provides proof that he had evidence concerning allegations of sexual violence committed within the training center run by Yves Jean Bart in Haiti, without it being possible to know precisely which ones in the absence of testimony of the specific facts that were then reported to him. The factual basis is not non-existent, even if it is weak in consideration of all the elements detailed above.”
As for Yves Jean Bart, he was suspended for life by the FIFA ethics committee on November 18, 2020 following the journalist’s revelations in the columns of The Guardian newspaper on April 30, 2020.
Two years later, on February 14, 2023, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned the sanctions imposed on the former FIFA president for “lack of evidence.” A month later, the governing body of world football filed an appeal against the CAS decision, March 20, 2023.
