Haiti's jailed former PM scolds new president
Thu Jul 27, 2006 8:48 AM GMT

By Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Haiti's former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, on a hunger strike, said on Wednesday the new government would be partly to blame if he died while imprisoned on charges he calls false and politically motivated.

"I am a political prisoner. Whether I get out of jail dead or alive will be on the government's decision," Neptune told journalists from his cell at the National Penitentiary annex.

"My case has nothing to do with justice," he said. "It's up to the government to free me."

Neptune, who has been on a hunger strike for some 15 months but was taking liquids, appeared exhausted. He wore a blue T-shirt and beige shorts, and lay on a small mattress on the floor with two pillows under his head.

He said his arrest in June 2004 was a political decision by U.S.-backed interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and former Justice Minister Bernard Gousse.

He served under President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was driven out in February 2004 during an armed rebellion. Neptune was detained on accusations that he masterminded what Aristide's opponents called a massacre on February 11, 2004, in La Scierie, a small village 60 miles (95 km) north of Port-au-Prince.

Neptune has repeatedly denied the accusations and has never been tried. He complained that the international community that once championed his case had abandoned him.

"I used to see many diplomats from the U.S. State Department and others, but I don't see them anymore," he said.

Neptune accused the administration of President Rene Preval, who took office in May, of continuing the "reign of injustice."

He said the new administration would bear part of the blame if he died in prison because Preval has the constitutional authority to grant amnesty.

"When you know what to do to prevent an innocent from dying in jail and you refuse to do it, you will become an accomplice in the death," said Neptune.

Preval, who was elected in February, said earlier this week that efforts were being made to free Neptune but did not provide further detail.