BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — 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 Saturday 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.
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 attacks on Kenscoff, a wealthy neighborhood 10 kilometers (6 miles) outside Port-au-Prince. It had been largely untouched by Haiti’s gang violence. Dozens of people were killed in the February attacks.
On Sunday, Kenscoff’s mayor told The Associated Press that nine workers were kidnapped from an orphanage in that neighborhood by armed men, including a foreign citizen whose nationality has not been confirmed. Mayor Massillon Jean said the attack happened around 2 a.m.
Gangs control 90% of Haiti’s capital, according to the United Nations, and in recent months they have been launching attacks on previously peaceful communities to seize more territory.
More than 5,6000 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.
