Jean Bertrand Aristide – former Haitian president
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Aug. CMC – Arrests warrants have been issued for suspects who did not comply with summons related to the corruption case involving former president Jean Bertrand Aristide.
On Friday, judge Larmarre Belizaire, who is conducting the inquiry, ordered the arrest of Mirlande Libérus, Gustave Faubert, Rodnée Deschineau, Jean-Robert Esther and Max Buteau as he proceeds with a series of hearings of former allies of Aristide who were allegedly involved in corruption, money laundering, misappropriation of public funds and other charges.
“I personally saw the warrants issued against those 5 people and I know the judge was trying to find DCPJ to have the police collected them,” the clerk, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Haitian Caribbean News Network (HCNN).
Mirlande Liberus was director of the Aristide Foundation for Democracy and reputed to have been Aristide’s right-hand woman, Gustave Faubert was minister of Finance under Aristide, while Jean-Robert Esther was an influential Police Inspector-General, and Rodnée Deschineau former Director-general of the Haitian Popular Bank, known as BPH, through which most of the fraudulent transactions were made.
The 5th suspect, Max Buteau, has allegedly received money through the scheme set up by the Aristide administration to misappropriate public funds.
It is not known if all of the suspects still live in Haiti.
Last week Aristide and 34 former allies were banned from leaving the country.
It’s alleged that millions of dollars were embezzled under Aristide’s government from 2001 to 2004.
Aristide was forced from power, in February 2004, in a bloody rebellion led by former army officer and police commissioner, Guy Philippe.
Aristide went into exile in the Central African Republic, then in South Africa where he spent about seven years, before returning to Haiti in 2011, under the presidency of René Préval.
The criminal investigation into Aristide’s administration was initiated in 2005 under the interim government, led by President Boniface Alexandre and Prime Minister Gérard Latortue.
