14836: (Chamberlain) Haiti's anti-drug chief charged with trafficking (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Deibert

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 14 (Reuters) - The director of a Haitian
police anti-drug task force was arrested after he had his men block off a
stretch of highway in the capital to allow a Colombian plan carrying about
a tonne of cocaine to land, a police spokesman said on Friday.
     Evans Brillant, director of the Anti-Drug Trafficking Brigade of the
Haitian National Police, was arrested on suspicion of involvement in
narco-trafficking on Thursday with five other policemen, police Inspector
General Harvel told reporters.
     "The men were arrested because they were involved in the landing of
drugs into the country," he said.
     Jean Baptiste said the six were accused of overseeing the landing last
week of a Colombian airplane laden with 1,760 to 2,200 pounds (800 to 1,000
kg) of cocaine on Port-au-Prince's crime-ridden Route 9.
     Police under Brillant's supervision allegedly set up roadblocks to
stop cars and provided security to ensure the cocaine's delivery, Jean
Baptiste said. The cocaine has since disappeared.
     The arrest came on the same day two rumored drug kingpins in the
affluent Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville were shot dead by masked men
allegedly wearing T-shirts and jackets bearing police insignias.
     The masked men dragged the two, Hector Kitan and Herman Charles, off a
busy Petionville street and took them to the home of a woman they knew,
where they killed them in a hail of automatic weapon fire, witnesses said.
     U.S. officials said two weeks ago that Haiti -- along with Myanmar and
Guatemala -- had failed to take sufficient action to fight drug trafficking
in the past year.
     It was the second time Haiti had been so designated in as many years.
The United States described the impoverished Caribbean nation of 8 million
as a "path of minimal resistance" for narco-traffickers due to weak
democratic institutions, corrupt officials and a fledgling police force.
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has denied the charges.
     The same week, Le Nouvelliste newspaper published a list of officials
whose visas were allegedly revoked by the United States for suspected
involvement in drug trafficking. Many of those named were lawmakers and
high-ranking officials in the Haitian National Police.
     Several of the officials have since held news conferences confirming
the revocation of their visas but denying involvement in the drug trade.