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US military vet recounts
arrests in Haiti to AP
In this Feb. 12, 2019 fi le photo, an
overturned car burns during a protest
demanding the resignation of
Haitian President, Jovenel Moise in
Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Associated Press / Dieu Nalio Chery, File
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By Danica Coto and Michael
Weissenstein
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — An
American security contractor at the
center of a mysterious case roiling Haitian
politics says that he and a group of
fellow veterans were sent to Haiti on a
mission to protect a businessman signing
a more than $50 million contract at
the country’s central bank.
Chris Osman, a 44-year-old retired
Navy SEAL, told The Associated Press
that he and six fellow contractors were
arrested by Haitian police during what
was supposed to be a simple Sunday
afternoon reconnaissance of the route
their client would take to the bank the
following day, Feb. 18.
“It went bad for us,’’ he said in the
first on-the-record interview by any of
the arrested men. “I don’t know what
the real truth is.’’
Osman said he and his fellow contractors
— carrying a dozen semiautomatic
rifles and pistols, along with
satellite phones and other gear — had
pulled away from the bank when they
were stopped by police and detained for
three days before they were set free by
Haiti’s Justice Ministry and allowed to
fly home to the U.S., where they were
released without charges.
The contractors’ unexplained release
and the still-murky nature of their mission
have helped fuel political chaos in
Haiti, where President Jovenel Moise
has faced months of protests over his
government’s failure to prosecute the
theft and mismanagement of $2 billion
in subsidized oil aid from Venezuela
under the administration of his predecessor
and political patron, Michel
Martelly.
Neither Moise’s administration nor
the American ambassador in Haiti,
Michele Sison, has offered any explanation
of the U.S. contractors’ mission
in Haiti or the reason for their release,
which appeared to violate Haitian criminal
procedure. Moise’s allies in the
lower house of Parliament dissolved
the Haitian government by dismissing
Prime Minister, Jean-Henry Ceant on
Monday hours before he was due to testify
in the Senate about the American
contractors’ case.
Communications Minister Jean-
Michel Lapin was being named interim
prime minister Thursday, but there
seemed little likelihood that the government
would be able to bring stability to
a country gripped by rising inflation,
energy shortages and popular discontent.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio flew to
Haiti Wednesday for meetings with the
president and opposition in which, the
senator said on Twitter, he discussed
the formation of a new government and
the need for “good faith dialogue’’ and
parliamentary elections scheduled for
October.
News site The Intercept reported
Wednesday, citing anonymous sources,
that one of the contractors, 52-yearold
Marine veteran Kent Kroeker, had
been told the mission was to escort
presidential aide Fritz Jean-Louis to
the Haitian central bank, who would
electronically transfer $80 million from
the government’s Venezuela oil fund
to a second account controlled solely
by the president in order to give Moise
greater power over the government’s
limited funds.
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