Haitian authorities launched an investigation on Monday against former president Jean Bertrand Aristide for alleged drug trafficking and corruption, a lawyer close to the ex-president said.
Telegraph.uk ORIGINALLY POSTED MARCH 1 UPDATED PHOTO MARCH 3
7:32AM GMT 28 Feb 2012
Aristide also faces charges of bribery and malfeasance, attorney Newton Saint-Juste said.
The Aristide Foundation for Democracy and former officials from his administration, including the ex-head of the National Police, are also named in the case, Saint-Juste said.
Haitian Justice Minister Michel Brunache had no immediate comment on the case.
Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest who was Haiti’s first democratically-elected leader, was a champion of Haiti’s poor and reviled by the Caribbean nation’s elite.
Aristide was president from 1991 to 2004, eventually leaving the country aboard a US Air Force plane into exile in South Africa amid political turmoil.
Now 58, Aristide returned to Haiti in March 2011 and has maintained a low profile.
Aristide returned just weeks after former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti.
Source: AFP
Let us get away with the foolishness that Aristide was the first democratically elected president in Haiti.
There were at least 5, including Francois Duvalier who received abot 60% of the vote against Louie Dejoie and Clement Jumel in 1957.
Aristide stole the elections in 2000.