22114: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-2 ex-officials of Haiti held in drug case (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Fri, May. 28, 2004

HAITI


2 ex-officials of Haiti held in drug case

DEA arrested Haiti's ex-police director and drug enforcement head, the
latest in deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government to face drug
conspiracy charges.

BY JAY WEAVER

jweaver@herald.com


The federal government on Thursday accused the former head of the Haitian
National Police and the former chief of the country's drug enforcement
agency of cocaine smuggling in a widening investigation aimed at the
administration of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents on Wednesday arrested former
police chief Jean Nesly Lucien at a Little Haiti home and former drug
official Evintz Brillant in Port-au-Prince on conspiracy charges. The pair
join two other high-ranking Haitian officials who have been arrested since
Aristide was deposed in February.

Federal sources have told The Herald that prosecutors are investigating
whether Aristide may have pocketed millions of dollars from Colombian and
Haitian traffickers who transported tons of cocaine through the impoverished
nation to the United States. They're also investigating reports that
Aristide's relatives control about $250 million in European banks.

No evidence has been presented in court implicating Aristide -- now in
Jamaica making arrangements to move to South Africa -- in the alleged
drug-smuggling conspiracy. Both countries have extradition agreements with
the United States.

Lucien's attorney, Stephen Golembe, said after his client's first court
appearance Thursday: ''He doesn't know why he's being charged.'' He added
that Lucien, who is being held at the Miami federal detention center, has
relatives in Miami and Boston.

Brillant, who was flown to Miami and also being detained, has no attorney
yet and said nothing in court Thursday. Neither Carlos Castillo, spokesman
for the U.S. attorney's office in Miami, nor DEA spokesman Joe Kilmer would
comment on the latest arrests or the overall investigation.

Allegations of a drug-trafficking conspiracy in Haiti's police department
surfaced in 2003 when Brillant, head of the anti-drug trafficking brigade,
was arrested and accused of aiding narco-traffickers. His own police
department accused him of ordering officers to block a highway north of
Port-au-Prince so a Colombian airplane carrying more than 1,000 kilos of
cocaine could land. Lucien and other senior police officers lost their jobs
because of the scandal.

According to the DEA affidavits for Brillant and Lucien's arrests, four
confidential sources said the two were paid tens of thousands of dollars to
allow cocaine shipments to flow through Haiti. One informant -- recently
identified in federal court as Aristide's former security chief, Oriel Jean
-- said Brillant and Lucien seized $450,000 in drug proceeds from a
Haitian-based Colombian drug trafficker at the Port-au-Prince airport in the
summer of 2002.

Jean told DEA agents that ''Brillant and other corrupt Haitian National
Police officials negotiated the return of $300,000 of these seized drug
proceeds'' with the trafficker, Carlos Ovalle, according to the affidavit.

Jean said that he, Brillant, Lucien and other police officials kept the
remaining $150,000, according to the affidavit. They later reached an
agreement with Ovalle whereby he ``would make similar percentage payments of
any future money shipments sent through the Port-au-Prince airport.''

The affidavit said Brillant ''was being groomed to replace'' the commander
of the national police's investigative unit, Rudy Therassan.

Therassan was arrested in Miami this month, and also has been identified as
a government informant in court.

Beaudoin ''Jacques'' Ketant, a convicted Haitian drug trafficker who is
cooperating with the government, told DEA agents that he paid Therassan
$150,000 for each planeload that landed on a major highway in Haiti.

Ketant has told U.S. officials that he paid Aristide and Jean up to $500,000
a month to let him land small planes on National Route 9, according to
sources familiar with the case. Ketant also claims to have made massive
payoffs to Aristide's political party, Lavalas, and to one of his
social-work foundations.

After Ketant's expulsion to the United States last June, DEA operatives and
embassy personnel in Haiti pushed Aristide to expel three other trafficking
suspects: Jean Eliobert Jasme, Eddy Aurelien and Ovalle.

_________________________________________________________________
Stop worrying about overloading your inbox - get MSN Hotmail Extra Storage!
http://join.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200362ave/direct/01/