25404: Wharram - news - Canada negotiating with kidnappers of 65-year-old woman in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Bruce Wharram <bruce.wharram@sev.org>


Yahoo! News
Canada negotiating with kidnappers of 65-year-old woman in Haiti

Tue Jun 14,12:45 PM ET

Canadian officials are negotiating with the kidnappers of a 65-year-old
Montreal woman abducted in Haiti, a government official said.

"Of course, we're playing a role. We're talking about a Canadian," said MP
Denis Coderre, special adviser to Prime Minister Paul Martin on Haiti, upon
leaving a House of Commons committee meeting to discuss events in Haiti.

"A negotiator has been assigned and a Montreal police officer is on the
scene. We're hoping the situation will be resolved as soon as possible," he
said, noting the captive resides in his electoral district in north Montreal
and that he knows her husband well.

Uegette Boulay, who was abducted on Sunday, was in Port-au-Prince for six
months to help launch a solar-powered telecommunications business with her
Haitian husband, according to news reports.

"Several individuals showed up at her home, kidnapped her in front of
several witnesses and two and a half hours later, they called her family in
Montreal" to demand a 300,000 US dollar ransom by Monday or she would be
executed, Quebec's LCN network reported.

Her niece said that she was able to talk to the hostage by telephone and
that she seemed "very calm."

Boulay is known in Haiti for her charitable work.

Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse.