New Haiti Leaders Allow Ex-Police Chief to Head for Brazil Exile

A former police chief of Port-au-Prince who headed a military unit known for its use of torture has left for exile in Brazil with the permission of the new government of Haiti.

The flight of Col. Albert Pierre indicates that the ruling National Council that succeeded ex-President Jean-Claude Duvalier is shying away from prosecuting deposed officials for human rights abuses. Three of the five members of the National Council are armed forces officers.

For many years, Pierre, 50, was a career army officer who headed an anti-subversion unit called the Commission of Inquest. Haitian human rights activists charge that the commission routinely tortured opponents of the Duvalier regime in special cells at the Dessalines jail here and that many prisoners disappeared while in custody.

‘A Routine of Torture’

“This is a sad day,” said Jean-Claude Bajeux, a Haitian exile who returned recently with the intention of preparing human rights cases for prosecution. “This man made a routine out of torture.”

The fate of other Duvalier security officials still in Haiti has become a subject of debate here. The armed forces are said to have several members of Duvalier’s personal militia, the Tontons Macoutes, under protective custody to keep them away from lynch mobs. Their exact whereabouts are unknown, and it is not clear whether they will be released.

Pierre left for Brazil by way of Panama on Sunday night by chartered jet with his wife and an unidentified police official who, like the Pierres, had taken refuge in the Brazilian Embassy.

No Formal Announcement

The government has not formally announced Pierre’s departure. In answer to a reporter’s question Monday, chief government spokesman Gerard Resil said Pierre was allowed to leave to avoid “reprisals.”

Pierre took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy shortly after Duvalier fled for France on Feb. 7. Brazil, under an agreement common to several Latin American countries, grants asylum to political refugees whose lives are considered in danger.

“As a police chief from the outgoing regime, his life was clearly threatened,” Brazilian Ambassador Paulo Frassinetti Pinto said Monday.

Frassinetti asserted that if the Haitian government had declared Pierre to be a criminal, he would have been turned over to local authorities. Instead, he said, the Haitians granted Pierre permission to leave, ordered that a chartered jet be flown from Miami to Port-au-Prince, sent a police escort to the Brazilian Embassy on Sunday and whisked him to the airport.

Small Exile Community

Frassinetti said that Pierre chose to go to Brazil because the Haitian exile community there is small, and thus he will run little risk of facing retribution. U.S. Embassy officials said that Pierre “made inquiries” about going to the United States but was turned down.

Nicknamed “The Little Torch,” Pierre was named head of the Commission of Inquest in 1974 and police chief in 1983. He became well known in 1980 by spearheading a crackdown on opposition journalists and politicians. Last December, he was removed as police chief in a government shake-up. However, he remained as head of the commission until Duvalier fled.

Foreign diplomats said they suspect that Pierre’s ties with the army may have eased his exit since he could conceivably implicate still-active officers in past government atrocities.