Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Feb. 01, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dr. Yves Jean-Bart, former long-serving President of the Haitian Football Federation, today announced that his legal representatives have filed an appeal before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The action comes on the heels of a decision by FIFA to ban him from life from all football-related activities and impose a fine of one million Swiss francs.
Dr. Jean-Bart has consistently maintained his innocence in the face of salacious and meritless charges brought by his political opponents in Haiti. The Haitian judicial system has fully cleared him of any wrongdoing, proving that the attacks against him are false accusations without merit.
The legal team representing Dr. Jean-Bart includes Haitian lawyer Stanley Gaston and Swiss lawyers Elie Elkaim and Claude Ramoni.
With this appeal, Dr. Jean-Bart aims to have the decisions rendered by FIFA overturned for violation of numerous rules of procedure and disregard of elementary principles such as the presumption of innocence. His attorneys are also challenging the contradictory elements of the investigation and the total lack of credible facts.
The CAS will be called upon to note the following:
- no identifiable victims appear in the FIFA decision
- elements of Dr. Jean-Bart’s defense were not examined with the impartiality expected of an international body
- there is no hard evidence to support FIFA’s 45-page decision
The FIFA decision was rendered in open defiance of the Haitian judicial system which opened in April 2020 a criminal investigation because of the seriousness of the allegations reported by the international press against Dr. Jean Bart. After an investigation, the Court of First Instance of Croix-des-Bouquets issued a dismissal order on November 16, 2020, noting that there were no indications or charges that Mr. Jean Bart would have committed the crimes with which he was anonymously accused.
“Dr. Jean-Bart expects to be fully exonerated of all charges and to have his reputation and honor restored,” said his spokesman Evan Nierman.