24315: Craig (pub) CNN: 350 inmates escape Haitian prison (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <sak-pase@bimini.ws>

350 inmates escape Haitian prison

Former prime minister spirited to safety
>From Frantz Ewald
Journalist
Saturday, February 19, 2005 Posted: 11:27 PM EST (0427 GMT)


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CNN) -- More than 350 detainees escaped from
Haiti's largest prison Saturday afternoon, after armed masked men in two
vans broke through barricades and attacked the facility, according to
police and eyewitness reports.

Most of the prisoners who fled from the National Penitentiary in
Port-au-Prince remained at large late Saturday night, but order had been
restored at the prison, police said.

The motive for the attack remains unclear.

Police said at least one guard was killed, and a hospital source told
CNN that a total of 15 people had died. That death toll has not been
independently confirmed.

As the attack began, prison guards spirited to safety two high-profile
prisoners being held at the facility -- former Prime Minister Yvon
Neptune and former Interior Minister Jocelerme Privet.

U.N. personnel took them into protective custody and later turned them
back over to Haitian police, said Damien Onses-Cardona, spokesman for
the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti.

U.N. peacekeepers, who were sent into Haiti last year to quell political
violence wracking the Caribbean nation, helped restore order at the
prison, Onses-Cardona said.

Neptune served as prime minister under former President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide.

When Aristide was deposed and went into exile last year, Neptune and
other former government officials were taken into custody by the interim
government for their alleged role in the violence.

At the time of Saturday's escape, about 1,000 people were being held in
the prison, which was designed to hold 600.

It is located near Haiti's presidential palace.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/02/19/haiti.prison.break/index.html