8 Haitian Policemen Convicted in 2010 Prison Killings
In a country where the authorities who abuse their power are almost never held accountable, 7 of 13 Haitian police officials who stood trial for a prison massacre that occurred a week after the 2010 earthquake were found guilty on Thursday in the southern city of Les Cayes, Haiti. Another central figure in the case, tried in absentia, was also convicted.
On the second anniversary of the massacre, Judge Ezekiel Vaval handed down sentences ranging from 2 to 13 years of imprisonment and hard labor. The stiffest sentences were awarded to the former Les Cayes prison warden, Sylvestre Larack, who got seven years, and the city’s riot police chief, Olritch Beaubrun, who got 13 years, although he was not present for the proceedings, having left the country, a lawyer said.
Judge Vaval, who received frequent death threats during the three-month trial and traveled to New York over the holidays to write his decision free from pressure, delivered his verdicts to an initially hushed crowd of hundreds packing the public theater that served as his courtroom. He spoke rapidly, looking off into the distance, and then rapidly left the stage as the audience erupted into cheers and jeers.
“The decision of the judge is his expression of the truth,” Judge Vaval told the crowd. “There are other versions that exist but this is mine. And that is the law.”
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/world/americas/7-haitian-policemen-convicted-in-2011-les-cayes-prison-killings.html?pagewanted=all