The former interior minister in the government of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been detained on suspicion of involvement in the killing of opposition members in February, police said.
Jocelerme Privert was detained at his home in the capital, Port-au-Prince, after first resisting arrest and was now in prison, police spokesman Commissioner Max Isaac said yesterday.
Privert is wanted in connection with a series of killings of Aristide opponents in the town of Saint Marc in February.
Gangs loyal to Aristide, who fled the country on Feb. 29 amid a mounting rebellion, are accused of carrying out the Saint Marc killings as part of a campaign of intimidation.
The spokesman said police staged a raid on Privert's home just after midnight.
"Mr Privert first tried to escape, but he cooperated and his arrest was completed at 2:00am," added Isaac.
A large amount of evidence was seized at the home, Isaac said.
A pro-Aristide gang known as "Balai Rouze" is said to have carried out the killings. Some police were said to be in the gang.
According to the National Coalition for Haitians' Human Rights, about 50 people were killed in Saint Marc between Feb. 11 and Feb. 13.
Privert is the first member of the Aristide administration to be arrested, though about 30 other ministers and senior officials, including former prime minister Yvon Neptune, have been banned from leaving the impoverished Caribbean republic.
An interim government led by Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has accused the Aristide regime of plundering the country's treasury before he fled on Feb. 29. It has said it will seek the extradition of Aristide, who is currently in Jamaica.
During a visit by US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday, Latortue said that, "The country is in a state of total bankruptcy.
"Those who were here before left absolutely nothing in the country. They took everything they could and they emptied the coffers, including the central bank's vault, before leaving," he said.
Amid lingering fears of violence, an international stabilization force of 3,600 troops is in Haiti and a UN peacekeeping force could follow. About 2,000 troops are American while France is also a major contributor.
Aristide has said he was forced to leave Haiti by the US and France and has started legal action against US and French government officials.
Powell insisted again on Monday that Aristide left voluntarily and that international action had avoided a "bloodbath" in Haiti.
During his joint press conference with Powell, Latortue confirmed that he and opposition groups had signed an agreement on Sunday that would pave the way for general elections next year and a new government by February the following year.
Officials here said tough conditions would be placed on candidates hoping to take part in the presidential, legislative and municipal elections in an effort to avoid intimidation and violence.
Powell said Washington would allocate US$9 million to the Organization of American States to help support political reform in Haiti, in addition to US$55 million that is being granted to Haiti for humanitarian work.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
RSS