Ex-Wife, Servants of Haitian Colonel Suspected of Poisoning Him

Police have arrested the former wife of retired Col. Jean-Claude Paul and two of his servants on suspicion of poisoning his pumpkin soup, radio stations reported Monday.

Police Chief Georges Valcin said that shortly after Paul’s death Sunday, officers arrested Mireille Delinois and the servants for the alleged poisoning, independent Radio Haiti-Inter said. No motive was disclosed.

Valcin told the radio station that Paul, 49, who commanded the army’s powerful, 700-man Dessalines Barracks until being forced to retire Sept. 30, died at his home in a suburb east of the capital after a midday meal.

Independent Radio Metropole had reported Sunday that Paul died of a heart attack.

Autopsy Scheduled

Government spokesman Frantz Lubin said an autopsy has been scheduled. A sample of the soup was flown to Miami for examination, Radio Haiti-Inter reported.

Paul, Delinois and Paul’s brother, Antonio Paul, were indicted in March by a federal grand jury in Miami on charges that they smuggled Colombian cocaine to the United States, using a landing strip at Paul’s farm.

Delinois was arrested in Miami on a drug charge in March, 1987, but fled to Haiti after posting bail.

Paul played a key role in the Sept. 17 coup in which enlisted men overthrew Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy, who had proclaimed himself president, and installed Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril. However, it was Avril who forced Paul into retirement.

There has been speculation that Paul’s death might help ease tensions between the United States and Haiti stemming from cocaine smuggled through the troubled Caribbean nation from South America to the United States.

The United States has made suppression of drug smuggling a key to restoring economic aid to Haiti, which was cut off after elections in November, 1987, were halted by gunmen allied with the former Duvalier family dictatorship. Paul was widely believed to have helped organize the shooting spree that left at least 30 people dead. He and his troops were condemned by international human rights groups.