(RSF/IFEX) – On 21 August 2002, RSF voiced its deep concern about Judicial Police Director Jeannot François’ statements at a 19 August 2002 press conference, in which he cast doubt on journalist Israel Jacky Cantave’s account of his recent kidnapping and suggested that it could have been fabricated. The organisation called on François to present […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 21 August 2002, RSF voiced its deep concern about Judicial Police Director Jeannot François’ statements at a 19 August 2002 press conference, in which he cast doubt on journalist Israel Jacky Cantave’s account of his recent kidnapping and suggested that it could have been fabricated.
The organisation called on François to present evidence to back up his claim, which contradicts earlier police statements on the abduction. “Without supporting evidence, these statements are unacceptable,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said, adding, “They make Israel Jacky Cantave out to be a liar, and his abductors could regard them as legitimising a new attack.” A journalist with Radio Caraïbes FM, Cantave was kidnapped along with a friend, Frantz Ambroise, on 15 July.
At his 19 August press conference, François said the initial results of the inquiry cast doubt on Cantave’s version of the facts and did not exclude the possibility that the entire affair was fabricated. The Judicial Police Central Directorate (Direction centrale de la police judiciaire, DCPJ) is expected to provide the Public Prosecutor’s Office with a second report on the case shortly.
François said three elements contradicted Cantave’s account. Firstly, three different doctors’ medical reports only made mention of light bruising and found “no trace of measurable injury that would prove that they had suffered ill-treatment.” Secondly, their vehicle had been involved in a traffic accident, but only once, on the morning of 15 July, that is to say, prior to their abduction. Finally, a witness testified to the presence of other persons in the vehicle at the time of the kidnapping, something Cantave and Ambroise had not mentioned.
Cantave and his radio station rejected François’ claims and pointed out contradictions with the judicial police’s earlier statements. Station director Patrick Moussignac said the police already had the medical reports at the previous week’s press conference, in which the police recognised that the two men had been subjected to physical abuse. Furthermore, both the report of Dr. Patrick René Pierre, the doctor who attended to Cantave and his friend at the time of their admission to hospital, and the report of the doctor chosen by the radio station mentioned that both men suffered “traumatisms.” The radio station’s doctor also mentioned a “cardiovascular impairment, probably stress-related.” The third medical report, that of a forensic doctor, has not been released. Cantave pointed out that the radio station had to insist repeatedly before its chosen doctor was allowed to examine the two men. Finally, with regard to the impact sustained by the vehicle and the number of occupants, Cantave stands by his version of the facts.
After being reported missing in Port-au-Prince on 15 July, Cantave and Ambroise were found alive the next day in the Petite Place Cazeau area (north of the city centre). They said they had been followed and then intercepted by two vehicles after leaving the radio station on the evening of 15 July. They said they were then taken to an unidentified place, where their abductors interrogated and beat them. Cantave’s friends and colleagues have linked the threats received by the journalist to his investigations in Cité Soleil and La Saline, two Port-au-Prince shanty towns under the control of drug dealers and armed gangs.
