Police in Haiti have arrested a former senator charged with conspiring against the state and financing criminal organizations for allegedly supporting gang members.
Nenel Cassy was arrested at a restaurant in Petionville, a wealthy district of the capital, Port-au Prince, Haiti’s National Police said in a post on Facebook. The police shared photos of the former senator in handcuffs next to heavily armed officers wearing ski masks. Arrests of high level officials are rare in Haiti, where the government is also struggling to control neighborhoods and villages that have been taken over by gangs.
Cassy was designated as a corrupt actor by the U.S. State Department in 2023. He was accused by Haiti’s police in February of backing gang members who launched deadly attacks on Kenscoff, a neighborhood 10 kilometers (6 miles) outside Port-au-Prince that is home to much of the nation’s elite. Kenscoff had been largely untouched by Haiti’s gang violence until February’s attacks in which dozens of people were killed. The neighborhood is now being targeted by gangs that are trying to seize more territory from Haiti’s government.
More than 5,600 people were reported killed in Haiti last year, with gang violence leaving more than 1 million people homeless in recent years, according to the U.N.
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