60 Flee as Gunmen Storm Haiti Prison

Gunmen stormed the national penitentiary in the heart of the Haitian capital Saturday, killing at least one guard and allowing dozens of inmates to escape. But authorities managed to spirit two imprisoned officials of the ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide government to safety, and they were under police protection, a U.N. spokesman said.

The daring raid began about 3 p.m., when a truck smashed through a gate at the century-old prison and an undetermined number of armed and masked men broke through a second iron gate that separated inner courtyards from the teeming downtown streets surrounding the prison.

The penitentiary’s two most high-profile inmates, former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and former Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert, “were taken out by prison guards to save their lives,” United Nations spokesman Damian Onses-Cardona said. They were being kept at a nearby house under the protection of Haitian National Police and U.N. forces until security could be restored at the penitentiary, he added.

At least 60 inmates escaped during the raid, Onses-Cardona said. Many of them apparently fled to the seaside slum of Cite Soleil, where residents reported celebratory gunfire and blaring music as people rejoiced over the return of long-jailed loved ones. Gunfire also erupted in the volatile Nazon area just south of the prison, witnesses reported.

At least one police officer died in the assault at the penitentiary, where only a small number of guards with pistols oversee more than 1,200 inmates who loiter in street clothes in the open yards behind a two-story concrete wall.

Security is notoriously lax at Haitian detention facilities because of a shortage of reliable corrections and police employees. During a visit by two journalists to the penitentiary last week, there was no search of bags or even a request for press identification. Both iron gates were secured with a simple padlock, usually left hanging open to allow relatives to visit and bring in food.

Haitian radio broadcasts speculated that the attack might have been the work of a drug gang aiming to free its imprisoned cronies and nab the two high-profile officials for ransom or leverage in the still-chaotic aftermath of Aristide’s Feb. 29, 2004, flight into exile in Africa.

Neptune, 58, had been at the prison since June 27, when he was arrested on a warrant alleging he had helped mastermind the killings of government opponents in the port city of St. Marc last February as a revolt spread across the country.

During a four-hour interview in his cell last week, Neptune appeared at peace with his surroundings and reconciled to a lengthy incarceration on charges he described as politically motivated. He has yet to face arraignment. He accused interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue’s U.S.-backed government of conducting a witch hunt against figures from Aristide’s Lavalas party and vowed to see his name cleared.

Neptune remained in office when Aristide fled in the face of the armed rebellion, and his handling of the tense transition earned praise from Western diplomats. When Neptune was arrested, U.S. Ambassador James B. Foley expressed Washington’s “respect for the former prime minister and the crucial and courageous role he played in assuring a constitutional and peaceful succession after the resignation and the flight into exile of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.”

From a cell arrayed with neat stacks of books and correspondence, Neptune said U.S. and French diplomats repeatedly encouraged him to leave Haiti for his own safety after Aristide left. He said he refused then and would never leave his homeland under a cloud.

“I’m not going to leave because I don’t want to give the impression that I’m running away from anything,” Neptune said.

In New York, his wife said Saturday that she was stunned by the news of the prison raid and feared for Neptune’s safety. She had not been informed that her husband was in protective custody and disputed initial reports that he might have been complicit in the breakout.

“He has no affiliation with gangs or drug men. He would never have gotten involved in any way with such a Rambo way of getting him out of jail,” she said in a telephone interview. “He’s a pacifist. He doesn’t believe in violence.”

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Times staff writer Williams reported from Miami and special correspondent Regnault from Port-au-Prince.