Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, North America

HAITI: U.S. Wants Aristide Official Extradited from Canada

Marty Logan

MONTREAL, Mar 17 2004 (IPS) - A former senior official in the government of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide will remain in legal limbo in Canada at least until next week after a judge adjourned his extradition hearing Tuesday.

Oriel Jean was arrested on suspicion of crimes against humanity and drug trafficking as he tried to enter Canada on Mar. 10. The case took a turn this week when police interrupted an immigration hearing in Toronto to announce the U.S. government had requested the extradition of Jean, 39, to answer charges of drug trafficking to the United States.

Rumours of cocaine trafficking have long swirled around the government of Aristide, who left Haiti Feb. 29 as rebels swept through the northern half of the country toward the capital Port-au-Prince. But Jean’s lawyer says the extradition request is just a ploy so U.S. officials can question people who might have information about Aristide.

The former president claims he was kidnapped by U.S. forces and taken to the Central African Republic, where French forces closely guarded him until Monday, when he and some supporters boarded a flight to Jamaica.

An international force led by U.S. Marines is now trying to restore order in Haiti, where well-armed rebels and gangs backing Aristide remain free, while sporadic violence continues. Dozens of people were reported killed in the chaotic weeks preceding the president’s flight.

A new prime minister, Gerard Latortue, was sworn in last week to replace Aristide’s appointee Yvon Neptune, but Aristide maintains he is the constitutional ruler of the nation of eight million people.

Jean’s lawyer, Guidy Mamann, said Tuesday that his client, the former security chief at the Haitian National Palace, has been an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and officials there want to question him further.

At the same time, “I believe also that they may be looking for close, intimate information on Aristide himself.”

“Obviously the Americans have identified Haiti as a place where they have vital interests and they want to know as much as they can about Aristide, his weaknesses and his strengths… that’s what this case is really about,” Mamann told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

According to media reports, the United States revoked Jean’s U.S. tourist visa in 2003 because it suspected he was involved in drug trafficking. Jean travelled to Canada in late 2003 for medical reasons and was questioned, but not held, by Canadian authorities at the request of U.S. officials, according to the Miami Herald.

DEA special agent Jim Shedd told IPS from Miami he would not confirm or deny Jean was an informant and could not say when the arrest warrant was issued for the former official, who reportedly worked in the Haitian government for 12 years. The warrant alleges he was involved in trafficking from 1999 until June 2003.

Shedd would not say if the DEA is investigating other former Haitian officials.

In response to Mamann’s assertion that U.S. officials want to interrogate Jean about Aristide, he added, “We only enforce the federal narcotics laws of the United States. That is our single mission”.

Mamann said Tuesday his client has visited Canada five times and has a valid tourist visa for this country. Canadian immigration officials did not respond to questions about the timing of his arrest.

The lawyer also says Canadian officials are bending the rules to permit the extradition, refusing to let him see Jean last weekend while he was being questioned by DEA officials and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

“We appear to be under a very, very heavy-footed American foreign policy,” Mamann told the CBC. Canadian officials are “being forced into violating the rights of people in Canada; they’re being forced to abandon the rule of law, the basic rules of fairness”.

That was denied by Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, who said it is normal practice for U.S. officials to be allowed to question prisoners in Canada, and vice versa.

She refused to comment on Jean’s case, except to say, “clearly there are issues in relation to this gentleman’s activities… those will be pursued and they will be pursued in a way that is respectful of due process”, reported Canadian Press.

In January, Ottawa announced it will hold a public inquiry into the case of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian who was arrested by U.S. officials at a New York airport in September 2002 and deported to Syria, where he was tortured for nearly a year.

The probe will focus on the role that Canadian security officers – who denied involvement in the case – played in the event. Arar alleges they provided information to U.S. agencies that led to his arrest.

Government documents filed at Jean’s immigration hearing Monday claim the man, arrested at Toronto’s Pearson Airport with his wife Bettina, who was later released, was suspected of involvement in drug trafficking and crimes against humanity.

“According to information obtained from diverse sources, the (Haitian) presidential security unit is linked to crimes against humanity”, a document said. Jean’s “position within the Aristide regime means he could not be ignorant of crimes against humanity committed by subordinates”.

In 2003, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its annual report implicated Haiti’s National Police in the Dec. 17, 2002 attack on the National Palace that the Aristide government called an attempted coup. Five people were killed.

On Oct. 18, 2001, the New York-based National Coalition for Haitian Rights wrote to Jean Marie Cherestal, president of the Superior Council of the Haitian National Police, to complain about police activities.

“The situation is disturbing: intolerance, ideological conflicts and political seizures of land, illegal police operations that are deplored by civil society, security forces that appear to have obtained a carte blanche allowing them to kill or let others kill with impunity,” the letter said.

“In this climate of reprehensible and unacceptable insecurity, human rights violations have reached an inconceivable level.”

An Amnesty International Canada official told IPS on Tuesday that Jean is not named in any of its reports on human rights violations in Haiti, but added that those documents do not always identify individuals.

The government submission filed in court Monday said, “According to information obtained from diverse sources, Mr Jean belonged to a group of Haitian officials linked to international drug trafficking, a group itself linked to transnational crime cartels”.