PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, Nov 16, CMC – A warrant has been issued for the arrest of former tourism minister tourism minister Edouard Junior less than a month after he claimed he was being politically persecuted and prevented from leaving the country.
According to the warrant issued by Clame Ocnam Daméus, the Government Commissioner at the Court of First Instance in Port-au-Prince, the former minister is accused of “embezzlement of public property and attempted embezzlement of public goods…”.
But the former minister has strongly denied the allegations describing them as “threats, acts of intimidation and instrumentalization of justice for personal and political ends…”
He said while he is aware he is “is not and cannot be above the law” he is nonetheless “prepared to answer, if necessary, the questions of the justice of his country to the extent that the procedures laid down in Articles 42, 185 and 186 of the Constitution are scrupulously respected.”
He is urging the Superior Court of Accounts and Administrative Litigation to audit the former government so as “to put an end to attempts to discredit its administration and to manipulate public opinion.”
Junior has re-affirmed his “attachment to the ideals of law and justice” recalling that “the construction of our democracy must necessarily obey the strict respect of the Constitution and the laws of the Republic.”
Last month, Junior told radio listeners that unknown gunmen had fired shots at his home and that he had also received death threats.
“From now on, my safety and that of my family are in the hands of (President) Jovenel Moïse..,” said Junior, who served in the 2016-17 administrations of former president Jocelerme Privert and former prime minister Enex Jean-Charles.
In October, Daméus, as part of the preliminary investigation sent a letter to the Director of the Immigration and Emigration Service asking him formally to “pass the necessary instructions” so that Junior and former economy minister Yves Romain Bastien be prohibited from leaving the country by air, sea and land.
