8424: Haitian Massacre Arrest (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   MIAMI, June 22 (AP) -- A former Haitian Army colonel who was sentenced
to life in prison by a Haitian court for his role in a 1994 massacre has
been arrested by immigration agents.
   Carl Dorelien, who also helped lead a coup against Haitian President
Jean Bertrand Aristide, was taken into custody Thursday in Port St. Lucie,
where he has lived in exile for several years, said Rodney Germain, an
Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman.
   He attempted to sneak out the back of his house, but was caught by
agents waiting there, Germain said. INS agents took Dorelien to the Krome
Service Processing Center in Miami-Dade County for deportation proceedings,
he said.
   The arrest of Dorelien, who won $3.2 million in the Florida state
lottery in 1997, brings to 26 the number of foreign nationals the INS has
arrested since the agency began detaining accused human rights violators
last year.
   In November, a Haitian court sentenced more than 30 top paramilitary and
army officers, including Dorelien, to life in prison with hard labor for
their roles in the 1994 Raboteau raid.
   During the massacre, soldiers and paramilitary thugs burst into dozens
of homes, beating and arresting people. Those who fled were shot.
Journalists who visited the scene estimated at least 30 people were killed.
The exact number is not known because soldiers prevented the victims'
families from retrieving bodies.
   The Raboteau slayings were part of a series of attacks undertaken to
break support for Aristide, a charismatic slum priest who became the
Caribbean country's first democratically elected leader in 1991.