26312: Craig (news) Top Aristide drug cop facing trial (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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


Posted on Thu, Sep. 22, 2005
FEDERAL COURT

Top Aristide drug cop facing trial

A federal trial begins Friday on alleged drug trafficking by a top police 
official in ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government.
BY JAY WEAVER
jweaver@herald.com <mailto:jweaver@herald.com>

Suspicious about Haiti's anti-narcotics chief, Drug Enforcement Administration 
agents made Evintz Brillant take a polygraph to test his credibility.

Brillant passed the exam in August 2002, when he indicated he was not involved 
in any illegal drug activity in his country. It was part of the agency's 
''screening process'' to determine Brillant's ''ability and aptitude to work'' 
with the DEA on a smuggling probe.

On Friday, the polygraph test will likely be the first issue to come up before 
opening arguments get underway in Brillant's trial on cocaine-conspiracy 
charges. A 12-person jury was selected Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors want to prevent Brillant, 33, from using his polygraph test 
as evidence because it could be harmful to their case.

Brillant's attorney says he wants the judge to advise the jury that his client 
took the polygraph.

The charges against Brillant were the result of last year's wide-ranging probe 
into the government of deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Three 
other Haitian national police officials have pleaded guilty.

Brillant remains the only one to face charges that he shook down Colombian drug 
traffickers for tens of thousands of dollars so they could ship tons of cocaine 
through the Port-au-Prince airport from February 2001 to July 2003.

In the DEA investigation, about 20 drug-traffickers, police officials, an 
Aristide security chief, an American Airlines employee and a Haitian politician 
have been indicted. Most have pleaded guilty and provided inside information to 
Miami prosecutors in exchange for more lenient sentences.

Aristide, ousted in February 2004 and exiled in South Africa, is a target of 
the federal grand jury.

In Brillant's polygraph test, he was asked whether he ever received a gift or 
bribe from a drug trafficker; ever provided protection for a cocaine smuggler; 
or ever participated in any illegal drug activity outside the scope of his 
official duties. He answered no to all questions.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lynn Kirkpatrick said ''a jury could very well 
misconstrue the polygraph results as being evidence that the defendant did not 
engage in the drug trafficking he is being charged with being involved in,'' 
according to her motion.

Brillant's attorney, Howard Schumacher, said he only learned last week from 
prosecutors that his client had taken the polygraph.

Both sides acknowledged that courts normally don't allow polygraph results into 
evidence because they're considered unreliable and confusing for jurors.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, who is presiding over the trial, indicated 
Wednesday that she would make her decision on Friday.

Allegations of a drug-trafficking conspiracy in the Haitian National Police 
surfaced in 2003 when Brillant, head of the anti-drug trafficking brigade, was 
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. Brillant and other senior police officers lost their 
jobs because of the scandal.

Four confidential sources told DEA agents that Brillant and former Haitian 
National Police Director Jean Nesly Lucien were paid tens of thousands of 
dollars to allow cocaine shipments to flow through Haiti, according to court 
documents.

One informant -- 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 records.

According to records, Jean said that he, Brillant, Lucien and other police 
officials kept the remaining $150,000, and agreed to share future drug 
payments.

Jean, who testified in July at the only other Haitian drug-trafficking trial, 
is scheduled to take the witness stand against Brillant.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/12709102.htm