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Posted at 2:37 a.m., Tuesday, July 1, 2003 |
| Former "Baby Doc" Duvalier foreign affairs
"Super-Cabinet Minister" Jean-Robert Estime taken away in tight handcuffs by police allegedly for
"grand thievery" |
| By Yves A. Isidor, wehaitians.com executive editor |
CAMBRIDGE, MA, Jul. 1 - As it has long been the case of Haiti's de facto government of
chief bandit Jean-Bertrand Aristide, one former senior official, at least, of Baby Doc
Duvalier's government is sure indignantly making the news these days.
|
|
| Jean-Robert Estime, in gray suit and
glasses, in two of Wehaitians.com's undated file
photos. |
Jean-Robert Estime, the son of a late Haitian president and former cabinet foreign
affairs "Super-Minister" in the last Baby Doc Duvalier's government (1986) was arrested Thursday
by Madagascan police, allegedly for grand thievery, reported l' Express, a Madagascan daily
(the daily, in French).
Many defenders of the former senior Haitian official have, with certitude, called the
charges, that he has defrauded the biggest American funded anti-rural poverty Landscape
Development Interventions Project in Madagascar of thousands of dollars, 'bogus'.
Contacted via electronic mail early Tuesday (Boston, MA's time), a senior Madagascan police official who promptly
replied to Wehaitians.com's inquiry on the condition that he not be named in this story
because he was not authorized to speak to the news media,
said "Mr. Estime was, in fact, taken into protective custody Thursday."
The American embassy in Madagascar, which via United States Agency for International
Development or USAID employed Mr. Estime, who has yet to renounce his Haitian nationality
for one of an adoptive nation, as the executive director of the anti-poverty project, and which well
defined purpose is to help build the nation's railroads and develop eco-tourism, has yet
to offer an opinion regarding Mr. Estime's arrest.
It is not clear whether many people who are close to Mr. Estime, including his
Madagascan girlfriend of five years, who are said to be accomplices, will also be arrested
and charged with grand thievery.
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