12416: Five members of family shot to death in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>


     PORT-AU-PRINCE, June 26 (Reuters) - Gunmen shot to death five
relatives of a ruling party official, including a 3-year-old child, in a
town on Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic, police said on
Wednesday.
     The gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons in the home of Cleonore
Souverain, the local coordinator for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's
Lavalas Family party, in the town of Belladere on Monday night, Haitian
National Police spokesman Jean Dady Simeon said.
     Souverain was not home at the time but those killed were all members
of his family, police said.
     "The government will use all necessary means to find those
responsible," Simeon said. "This is an odious and horrible crime."
     Simeon said 20 people had been taken into custody for questioning but
he declined to identify them.
     There was no immediate indication of what was behind the murder, but
lawlessness in the Caribbean nation is running at high levels.
     Belladere was the site of an attack on the local police station in
May, in which a local Lavalas activist was killed. Four police officers
were killed and a dozen more were wounded in a series of attacks on police
stations around Haiti last July.