Joseph Michel François

Joseph Michel François (born May 8, 1957 ) was involved in the overthrow of the first democratically elected President of Haiti , Jean-Bertrand Aristide , in 1991 under the direction of Raoul Cédras , as well as in the Raboteau massacre on April 24, 1994, in which approx 20 people were killed.

With the arrival of the US armed forces in Haiti in September 1994, François fled to the Dominican Republic . When he was expelled there in 1996 for planning another coup in Haiti, François ended up in San Pedro Sula , in Honduras , where he ran a modest furniture warehouse. There he was arrested by American prosecutors in March 1997 and charged with smuggling 33 tons of cocaine and heroin from his private runway in Haiti to the United States . He is said to have received bribes from Colombian drug lords in the millions. François, however, denied everything and remained in a Honduras prison until July, when the Honduras Supreme Court rejected US extradition efforts because of a lack of evidence and eventually released him.

In 2000, François was charged for his involvement in the Raboteau massacre and on November 16, 2000, a Haitian court sentenced him to life imprisonment in absentia.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ TRIAL Watch : Joseph Michel François  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ Andrew Reding: Democracy and Human Rights in Haiti. ( Memento of January 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) World Policy Institute, World Policy Report March 2004