Exiled Aristide takes France, US to court on abduction claims

Category: World News

Date Added: 2 April 2004

PARIS Haiti's ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has lodged a lawsuit in Paris claiming coercion involving US and French officials forced him from power, his lawyer and legal authorities said yesterday.

The suit, for "threats, death threats, abduction and illegal detention", was lodged this week, Aristide's lawyer, Gilbert Collard, said.

It designates the defendant as "X" but mentions the French and US ambassadors in Haiti, Thierry Burkard and James Foley, as well as a French writer, Regis Debray, and the sister of French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, Veronique Albanel, in the deposition.

Aristide was flown out of Haiti to Africa on February 29, after a threeweek insurgency by rebels.

US forces escorted the former president from his official residence and provided the aircraft that carried him out of Haiti.

France has played a key role in setting up an interim government after Aristide's departure.

Aristide is currently in Jamaica despite plans for him to take up temporary exile in Nigeria.

Collard said: "We have received a mandate from Mr Aristide and the US lawyer taking care of his interests, Mr Ira Kurzban, to lodge a lawsuit against any person who may be held responsible for abduction."

Collard said witness accounts, video footage and photographs would be included in the case to be taken to court.

Collard said Aristide's US lawyers were to start a similar action in the US.

France's foreign ministry has said that Aristide signed a formal resignation letter that opened the way to a new administration being set up in Haiti.

But Collard said the resignation, made "at night, while in the hands of armed soldiers", was unconstitutional and invalid. Sapa-AFP