AHP August 18, 2005 1:05 PM
The MINUSTAH condemns summary justice and declares that only the police can arrest presumed bandits
Port-au-Prince, August 18, 2005 (AHP)- MINUSTAH spokesperson Damian Onsès Cardona declared Thursday that only the National Police of Haiti has the right to arrest presumed bandits to hand them to justice after for legal follow-ups.
Damian Onsès Cardona spoke in reaction to close to twenty cases of lynching last week and at the beginning of this week by individuals armed with machetes and other arms in the populist neighborhoods of Solino and Bel-Air.
Several individuals involved in these crimes had boasted in public for their crimes. "If I had known the one who gave the first machete blow to
Shaba, I would have celebrated with him", one of the aggressors had declared on the air, regretting that he only gave the last blows. Accused of being a bandit, Shaba was burned while he was still alive.According to the MINUSTAH spokesperson, this practice in unacceptable at a time when Blue Helmets and the PNH are about to put an end to crime and insecurity in the country.For his part, CIVPOL spokesperson Jean-François Vézina announced that 250 agents of the Corps d'Intervention de Maintien d'Ordre (CIMO) and of the Swat Team just had a training of several months. This training, he said, is to reinforce the intervention capacity of these agents from specialized units.
He also announced the CIVPOL reinforcement with 85 new Senegalese police officers who arrived on August 13th.
8 CIVPOL agents are currently collaborating with the Central Direction of Judicial Police (DCPJ) on a series of crimes and kidnappings, he also pointed out.
AHP August 18, 2005 1:45 PM
