1.                 Marie-Alice Charles

                   2.                 Gérard Laguerre

                   3.                 Frtizner Dorvilus

                   4.                 Borgella Saint-Louis

                   5.                 Jean Milian

                   6.                 Eddy Remy

          76.     During the Commission's visit with the prisoners at the National Penitentiary it met with a group of 28 women ' among them a 16 year old minor ' and only one of whom had been brought before a judge.  None had a lawyer.  The delegation also met with a large group of male prisoners, the majority had not been brought before a judge and their names do not appear on the list of detainees; one for example, was 17 year old and had been transferred the day before from Recherches Criminelles where he said other were still being held.

          77.     During the Commission's visit to Haiti in January 1987, the members of the Commission were informed by the authorities that Fort Dimanche, the notorious prison of the Duvalier era, was no longer being used.  In fact on May 14, 1986 the Ministry of Information published a communiqué announcing that Fort Dimanche, symbol of the Duvalier dictatorship, would no longer be used as a prison.  The members of the Commission visited fort Dimanche and found that it still held detainees.  In Fort Dimanche, the Commission interviewed detainees who had been beaten, who did not receive medical care, who were starving because they received no food, and had been held incommunicado for months at a time, having had no contact with a lawyer, judge or any other representative of the legal system.

          78.     With respect to these abuses, the Commission in its March 1987 letter to Col. Abraham stated that:

                   The mistreatment of prisoners and detainees is an abominable practice which must be quickly and definitively be eliminated.  The testimony received from detainees in Fort Dimanche and the National Penitentiary confirms that detention commences with a beating, sometimes to the point of requiring medical attention, that, in general, they receive food once a day or not at all, most detainees suffer severe weight loss, they receive no visits, have no access to counsel, are not brought before a judge, and except on very rare occasions, they do not leave their cells.  The case of Jean Gibson Narcisse, whom the Commission interviewed in Fort Dimanche, is of a particular concern to the Commission and we wish to receive a full report as to the medical and legal attention he has received.  The Commission recommends further that the Government maintain a central registry of the names of detainees and the places where they are detained.

          79.     During the Commission's visit to Haiti in August 1988 the delegation once again met with Major Isidore Pognon.  Maj. Pognon dressed in the blue uniform of the Haitian Police Forces, gave the delegation a tour of the facilities in the company of many of his 200 men.  He stated that Ft. Dimanche is no longer used as a prison although approximately 10-20 people are detained on a daily basis but they are transferred to the National Penitentiary on the same day.  The delegation met with two detainees, one a drug addict and the other an illegal alien from the Dominican Republic.  The Haitian stated that he was in fact a drug user and had no complaints about being locked up.  He denied that his mother had requested his detention, as stated by Maj. Pognon.   The Dominican stated that he had no lawyer and no accusation had been made against him.  They had both been in detention for several days.

          In light of the fact that Ft. Dimanche was used to detain members of Mr. Leslie Manigat's party, it is a matter of public record that it is still being used as a detention center.  Given the fact that the military government had three weeks to prepare for the Commission's visit the Commission is not in a position to say whether what it was shown reflects the current reality.

          81.     It should be added that other detention centers exist in Port-au-Prince, among these which have been identified there is one known as Cafeteria and another in the Petionville district.  The Commission did not visit these centers and the authorities did not inform the Commission of any other detention centers in Port-au-Prince sine it maintains that persons are only (legally) detained in the National Penitentiary.  Information received from persons in detention at the National Penitentiary regarding places from which they were transferred contradicts the information presented by the military government that these facilities are no longer being used as detention centers.

b.       The Case of Mr. Jean Gibson Narcisse (Case No. 9897)

          82.     On January 20, 1987 two members of the Commission visited Fort Dimanche, Dr. Marco Tulio Bruni Celli and Ambassador Elsa D. Kelly, with members of the Commission's Secretariat.  Then Capt. (now Major) Isidore Pongnon, the head of Fort Dimanche, denied the members of the Commission access to the cell of Mr. Jean Gibson Narcisse, aged 21, a prisoner held in solitary confinement, and with whom the members of the Commission sought to speak in private.  News of the denial of access to the prisoner was broadcast on Haitian television and in the written press.  Mr. Narcisse's mother, who had no information about the whereabouts of her son since September 1986, learned, by means of the press reports covering the Commission's visit to Fort Dimanche, that her son was in detention.  The next day access was granted for the Commission to return.

83.     On January 22, 1987, the Commission again visited Fort Dimanche and interviewed Mr. Narcisse in private.  He had been in detention since September 1986, and had been badly beaten, especially on the throat, making it very difficult for him to speak.  He had been given very little food, a small amount of rice and corn each day, and had lost approximately one hundred pounds.  In spite of the health problems which resulted from the beatings, he received no medical attention.

84.     The medical report the Commission requested of the Haitian Government was never provided.  Fifteen days after the departure of the Commission, however, Mr. Narcisse was transferred to the National Penitentiary where his conditions of detention improved.

85.     Mr. Ernst Cadet had been arrested in Cité Soleil the same day as Mr. Narcisse.  The Commission had also opened his case and sought to interview him at the National Penitentiary during its visit in January.  The members of the Commission were able to meet with Mr. Cadet in private and to learn, first hand, about his conditions of detention and the status of any legal proceedings pending against him.

86.     Mr. Ernst Cadet was arrested and taken directly to Casernes Dessalines, where he was beaten.  The family of Mr. Narcisse and the family of Mr. Cadet both sought the services of the same Haitian lawyers, Mr. Gérard Georges and Mr. Jean-Claude Nord.  Following the proceedings brought against them on October 27, 1987, both Messrs. Narcisse and Cadet were acquitted and released, after having spent 13 months in preventive detention.  Following their release, Mr. Gérard Georges reported that he began to receive anonymous threatening phone calls.  The callers said that he was the lawyer of terrorists and warned him that he would be killed.

87.     As the cases of Mr. Narcisse and Mr. Cadet clearly demonstrate, arrests are carried out without the benefit of law or legal protections for the individual.  Arrests are carried out by uniformed members of the security forces or by plainclothes members of the Army or the Police.  The 1987 Constitution, however, mandates that arrests be conducted with a warrant and that the detainee be brought before a magistrate within 48 hours (supra).  In practice, however, according to the military commanders of these detention centers, approximately 10-20 persons are detained in each center daily, and then transferred within 48 hours to the National Penitentiary.  The detainee is taken to Recherches Criminelles (the Criminal Investigations Unit of the Police Headquarts), to Fort Dimanche, or to Casernes Dessalines, the military barracks of the Army, located near the National Palace and other similar places throughout Haiti, where he/she is interrogated, and beaten sometimes to the point of unconsciousness or death, the detainee is left to starve, has no contact with family or a lawyer, and as regards the community, he/she has "disappeared".

c)       The Case of Mr. Yves Volel (Case No. 10.095)

          88.     Mr. Yves Volel, aged 53, practiced law and was a candidate for the Presidency of Haiti for the Parti Chrétien d'Haiti (PCH).  His case illustrates the consequences of one lawyer's efforts to see that the Constitution be applied as regards persons in preventive detention.

          89.     According to the information presented to the Commission, on October 9, 1987, as Mr. Yves Volel was leaving the Office of Contribution building (a sort of municipal tax collection office) someone called to him through a small grille from a cell in Recherches Criminelles.  The person identified himself to Mr. Volel as Jean Raymond Louis, and requested that Mr. Volel, a well-known lawyer, intervene on his behalf.

          90.     Four days later, on October 13, 1987, Mr. Yves Volel, with a copy of the 1987 Haitian Constitution in hand, returned to Recherches Criminelles in order to demand the immediate release of Mr. Jean Raymond Louis, on the basis of Article 25-1 of the Constitution, which stipulated: 

          No one may be interrogated without his attorney or a witness of his choice being present.

          91.     Mr. Volel had come to Recherches Criminelles to meet with Major Joseph Baguidy, the officer in charge, but prior to entering the office of Major Baguidy he held a press conference in front of the building.  Mr. Volel spoke first in Creole to the Haitian journalists present and then intended to repeat his comments in English in order to address himself to the foreign journalists.  He had just begun to speak in English when he was hit by three bullets, two of which struck him in the head and the neck killing him instantly.  Reportedly the bullets struck him from behind as Mr. Volel and the journalists were assaulted by plainclothes armed men.  The Commission, during its on-site visit to Haiti in August 1988 was surprised at the number of military men under Maj. Baguidy's command who were not in uniform.  During the Commission's visit to Recherches Criminelles, the delegation visited the facilities and was concerned that the majority of the military officials were not in uniform in sharp contrast with the military officials at Fort Dimanche, who were all in uniform.

          92.     According to Mr. Walter Bussenius, the general manager of Télé Haiti which had filmed the press conference but whose cameras and the film had been confiscated, Mr. Volel was shot at the end of a statement about constitutional rights.  Reportedly Mr. Volel told the journalists:  "I have the Constitution in my left hand and my robe as a lawyer in my right hand.  I am going to go inside and defend this man's constitutional rights."³²   According to Mr. Bussenius he was shot after that statement.  Since Mr. Volel was shot in front of the police headquarters and the plainclothes armed men who did the shooting proceeded to confiscate the equipment of the journalists rather than assist the victim or pursue the perpetrators, it is presumed that the shooting was carried out by the police.

93.     The Chief of Police, Mr. Grégoire Figaro, in an official communiqué, a few hours later, stated that Mr. Volel tried to free a prisoner by force and that he died in an exchange of gunfire.  The Police Chief's statement claimed that Mr. Volel had been armed with a Colt 45 and he gave the supposed serial number of the weapon as proof.  He claimed that Mr. Volel had arrived at the police headquarters accompanied by armed men, but made no mention of the journalists.  Mr. Bussenius is reported to have said that his staff members told him that Mr. Volel was not armed.

94.     No one was arrested for the killing of Yves Volel.³³   The version of the facts presented by the journalists was confirmed the same day as film of the press  conference - which had escaped confiscation - was broadcast by the international press exposing the cover-up attempted by Col. Figaro's earlier account.

95.     Panic broke out after the shooting of Mr. Volel and the assembled journalists took flight.  A photo appeared in the press of Yves Volel's body lying in a pool of blood with a revolver at his side.  The available evidence leads to the conclusion that the revolver was planted at the scene to give credence to the Government's charge that Mr. Volel attempted to enter the Police Headquarters by force.  Mrs. Volel, however, announced the following day, that her husband was unarmed the day in question and showed the press the weapon that her husband was authorized to carry by law and which he had left at home.

96.     The Commission presented this case to the Government of Haiti on October 19, 1987, and despite reiterated requests for information dated February 18, 1988 and May 2, 1988, the Government has not responded.  The Commission during its on-site visit in August 1988 raised the case of Mr. Volel with Col. Baguidy, who is in charge of criminal investigations.  Col. Baguidy informed the delegation that "the case has been solved," it is before the courts and that the suspects are "about to be arrested."  Since they are not yet under arrest he could not reveal their names, he added. 

d)       The case of Mr. Jean Raymond Louis