AMERICAN PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH PERSONALLY AUTHORISED AWARD OF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE MEDAL TO GUY PHILIPPE IN 2004: It took 12 years and 10 attempts to arrest ex-Haiti rebel leader Philippe, feds say

A 2002 photo shows Guy Philippe (far left), one of the rebel leaders of the Resistance Front, in Gonaives after an armed revolt. Peter Andrew Bosch Herald files

By Jacqueline Charles and Jay Weaver

jcharles@miamiherald.com

Just months after a U.S. grand jury indicted ex-Haitian rebel leader Guy Philippe on drug-trafficking charges, federal authorities attempted to trick him into accepting travel documents that would bring him to South Florida — and into the arms of the law.

But Philippe, a roguish former Haiti National Police commander who two years earlier had led the insurgency against then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, didn’t take the bait.

The ploy was only one of more than 10 attempts by U.S. law enforcement — with the help of Haiti National Police — to bring Philippe to justice during an elaborate, international game of cat-and-mouse that spanned almost a dozen years before his arrest Jan. 5 outside a Haiti radio station.

“On numerous occasions, agents traveled to Haiti and worked with their Haitian counterparts to strategize and execute arrest operations that were unsuccessful,” federal prosecutors admitted for the first time in court documents filed this week. “During these attempts, agents were fired upon and encountered extremely dangerous circumstances in the area.”

Federal agents tried to arrest Philippe, 49, many times in collaboration with the Haiti National Police: setting up checkpoints, paying informants, launching a U.S. military operation and pursuing him in a foot chase but lost him in dense vegetation. Philippe had been a suspected drug trafficker at least since 2000. He is the last high-profile defendant from a U.S. crackdown on cocaine smuggling through Haiti that yielded the convictions of more than a dozen drug traffickers, Haitian senior police officers and a former Haitian senator.

Former Haiti coup leader Guy Philippe, who has been wanted for more than a decade on drug charges in the United States, was arrested Thursday in Haiti and escorted to Miami by U.S. federal agents.

Despite the repeated attempts to arrest him, prosecutors said, Philippe would “personally reach out to various agents” over the past decade to discuss the terms of his possible surrender to U.S. authorities. His former Miami attorney even tried to negotiate a lenient sentence of less than three years, and his wife inquired about where he might be imprisoned, according to court papers filed by federal prosecutors this month.

Philippe, who claims in court papers he didn’t know he was wanted on drug-and money-laundering charges by federal authorities, even filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking to learn what the U.S. government had on him.

The government’s disclosures, outlined in a 14-page document filed by prosecutor Lynn Kirkpatrick, show for the first time the lengths to which the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service went to arrest Philippe.

Philippe had just been elected to the Haitian Senate when he was arrested outside a Port-au-Prince radio station by Haitian police officers with the anti-drug trafficking unit. The officers arrested him under a Haitian warrant charging him with carrying out a 2016 deadly attack on a police station in southern Haiti.

Within an hour, the officers turned Philippe over to DEA agents — at the request of the U.S. government — and he was immediately expelled from the country with the authorization of Haiti’s minister of justice, according to the prosecution’s new court filings.

Philippe and his defense attorney have repeatedly called the arrest a “kidnapping.”

Prosecutors disclosed the latest information to counter Philippe’s assertion that his arrest was illegal because he had immunity as an elected Haitian senator who was set to be sworn in four days after his arrest.

Natalie Philippe, wife of Guy Philippe, confirming that it was her husband’s voice from inside a Miami federal detention lockup in a recording that went viral recently.

They also laid out the numerous U.S. attempts to arrest Philippe to rebut his effort to dismiss the drug-trafficking indictment filed in November 2005, claiming the prosecution violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial. Philippe’s attorney asserted that the delay has been “unreasonable” because more than 11 years have passed since the filing of the indictment.

“The government has made no meaningful effort during those many years to bring Mr. Philippe to trial,” his attorney, Zeljka Bozanic, wrote in the dismissal motion.

But her motion ignores the various U.S. attempts to arrest Philippe during that period — including coverage of some in the Miami Herald and other news media. Nor does the motion acknowledge the 70-day deadline for a speedy trial. The clock starts ticking after the defendant’s first appearance in federal court; Philippe faced the drug charges for the first time Jan. 6. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held at the federal detention center in Miami.

Philippe’s high-profile arrest has turned the notorious figure into a cause célèbre in his native country. Supporters have demonstrated in his western Haiti hometown of Pestel, and outside of the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince seeking his immediate return. And on Wednesday, the Haitian Senate overwhelmingly approved a resolution “energetically condemning” Philippe’s arrest and deportation to the United States.

“The Senate was humiliated,” said Sen. Carl Murat Cantave, who led the push for the resolution along with fellow senator and former government prosecutor, Jean Renel Sénatus, in a debate that lasted two days.

Philippe’s supporters in the chamber argued that his arrest was an attack on democracy and human rights, and showed a disregard for Haitian sovereignty. The resolution calls on the Lower Chamber of Deputies to impeach outgoing Justice Minister Camille Edouard Jr. — who signed the order to expel Philippe at the request of the U.S. — for the crime of high treason.

His signed letter to the head of the Central Bureau of the Judicial Police (DCPJ), Normil Rameau, was presented as evidence in the chamber.

The Senate resolution seeks Philippe’s immediate return to Haiti and it also calls on Rameau and Haiti National Police Chief Michel-Ange Gédéon to formally apologize to the Haitian Senate and the nation “for their bad behavior” in Philippe’s arrest — or risk being fired.

Philippe, from behind bars in Miami, had lobbied senators to pass the resolution condemning his arrest. Earlier this month, Philippe’s wife, Natalie, a U.S. citizen, delivered a plea on his behalf in a video urging senators to condemn “this act that was done against me.”

The request is part of Philippe’s campaign to avoid trial. In court papers, Philippe’s attorney, Bozanic, claims he was the target of a murder plot, that a bodyguard took two bullets for him during his arrest and that he was mistreated by Haitian police and U.S. agents. Bozanic said her client was hooded while in custody and forced to sit on the floor of a car with the hot engine underneath him.

“Because the conduct of the U.S. agents going to a foreign country and apparently attempting to shoot the defendant is so outrageous, this court should exercise its judgment and dismiss the indictment,” Philippe’s lawyer asserted in court papers.

Kirkpatrick, the prosecutor, rejected the claims: “This is patently false.”

U.S. agents first saw Philippe about an hour after his 4 p.m. arrest Jan. 5, and were with him until he was flown out of Haiti at about 10 p.m.

“During five of those hours, the defendant was either in an air-conditioned vehicle, an air-conditioned undisclosed location or air-conditioned United States airplane,” prosecutors said in court papers. “The government can demonstrate that the defendant was arrested pursuant to a valid Haitian arrest warrant, properly transferred to United States custody, treated while detained in Haiti and throughout the time in United States custody, given medical attention, food and water, and appeared before a federal magistrate judge less than 24 hours after being arrested.”

In fact, prosecutors said, only a single Haitian police officer “fired shots into the air as a security precaution” during the arrest and immediately afterward, a supervisor issued a command for his team to hold their fire.

“All of the individuals surrounding the defendant, including the three armed men, fled the scene and left the defendant behind,” prosecutors said about Philippe, who was with 12 people — including three with long guns. “It was apparent to everyone on the [Haitian police] arrest team that no one was injured.”

Philippe is scheduled for trial April 3 in Miami federal court. In the filings, prosecutors said they would try to restrict Philippe from disclosing U.S. government classified information during the trial that any drug-tainted money was “derived — directly or indirectly — from the United States government.”

Philippe has long claimed he had received American counter-narcotics training in Ecuador in the 1990s.

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COMMENT: HAITIAN-TRUTH.ORG
COME ON GUYS, GIVE US A BREAK!
He was trained by the Americans.
He removed Aristide from the equation for them.
The very last lines of this article effectively suggest the American government will deny Guy Philippe the right to a truly fair trial. They are trying to block Guy’s revelation of those services for which President George Bush personally authorized the award of a Distinguished Service Medal for Guy Philippe after his coordination of a force that saw Aristide fly into exile.
Contrary to news reports, in the Miami Herald, and other places, it was not a bloody coup. One person was killed during the sweep from the north to the south of Haiti.
Guy’s continued persecution was the result of collusion between Preval/Aristide and certain American authorities with a pro-Lavalas leaning. Preval and Aristide were/are major cocaine traffickers and the American government knows this. Preval is dead and Aristide lives a comfortable life, protected by the damaging dossiers he holds on key American figures, including the Clintons.
He was illegally arrested by President Privert’s team, a shock to the American authority who were not a part of the game. They only became involved when they received a phone call, initiating a scramble to arrange for an aircraft and crew for the mission.
We are not hopeful for Guy’s fair trial in a system where he has no cash for a real attorney and the American team is willing to ignore the real facts.
I suppose they will block testimony from an American full Colonel and Major General who travelled to Haiti for meetings with Guy Philippe during the 2004 Aristide project. The Major General flew to Panama with guy to arrange for certain supplies.
The Secretary of Defense send another Colonel to Haiti. He formally presented the Distinguished Service Medal to Guy.
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE MEDAL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Distinguished_Service_Medal
It is the United States’s highest non-combat related military award and it is the highest joint service decoration. The Defense Distinguished Service Medal is awarded only while assigned to a joint activity. Normally, such responsibilities deserving of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal are held by the most senior officers such as the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chiefs and Vice Chiefs of the Services, and Commanders and Deputy Commanders of the Combatant Commands, the Director of the Joint Staff etc., whose duties bring them frequently into direct contact with the Secretary of Defense, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and other senior government officials. In addition, the medal may also be awarded to other service members whose direct and individual contributions to national security or national defense are recognized as being so exceptional in scope and value as to be equivalent to contributions normally associated with positions encompassing broader responsibilities.[2]
READ THE INSCRIPTION ON THE MEDAL WE HAVE SHOWN.  – GUY PHILIPPE
The Miami Herald article infers guilt by suggesting Guy Philippe’s lawyer tried to plea bargain.
The facts are much different  Richard Dansoh 1-787-405-2285  BAR NUMBER 579254 was barred from the pactice of Law at the time of his appearance. He told Guy that the Haitian Parliament had sent him. This was not true.
When we tried to find him, he had no office, all of his phones were cut off except for a cell phone hat was never answered and had a messagein Portuguese
He should be jailed.
WE ARE NOT OPTIMISTIC ABOUT GUY’S CHANCES AT A FAIR TRIAL IN THE AMERICAN SITUATION.
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