Eric Jean Baptiste, a former presidential candidate and political party leader in Haiti, has been shot and killed, a party official said on Saturday.
The killing stunned many in a nation already in crisis.
Baptiste was killed on Friday in the community of Laboule in the capital, Port-au-Prince, along with his bodyguard, said Ricardo Nordain, spokesman for his Rally of Progressive National Democrats party, which was founded in 1979 by former Haitian president Leslie Manigat.
Photo: AFP
Baptiste also owned one of the biggest lottery companies in Haiti, Pere Eternel.
No one has been arrested.
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry said that he and others were revolted by the killing.
“The horrific assassination of the political leader Eric Jean Baptiste and his bodyguard has once again plunged the Haitian nation into turmoil. We strongly condemn this heinous crime against this patriot, this moderate politician committed to change,” he wrote on Twitter.
The UN Integrated Office in Haiti echoed Henry’s sentiments, saying it condemned the killing as it demanded justice and called on local authorities to improve the country’s deepening insecurity.
“Jean Baptiste was a committed politician, serving the consolidation of democracy and the rule of law in Haiti. His murder constitutes an attack on these fundamental values,” the office said.
The killing occurred in an area where the Ti Makak gang, which means “Little Macaques,” is fighting with the Toto gang for control of territory. The community is near Pelerin, where Haitian president Jovenel Moise was assassinated in his private residence last year.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS