Haitian says mob killed 2 journalist/politicians

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Jul 6, 2008 | by Jonathan M. Katz Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Police said Saturday they are investigating an outbreak of mob violence that a Haitian politician says resulted in the deaths of two journalists who were considering campaign runs for the Senate.

Haitian and U.N. police have yet to publicly identify victims of the June 27 mob attack in which police said people in the northern town of St. Raphael were taking revenge on men they believed had robbed a local credit union.

But Georges Honorat, assistant secretary-general of the leftist National Popular Party, identified two of the victims as Prad Jean Vernet and Adrien Michel, who he said were journalists with the small party's Haiti Progres newspaper.

The weekly newspaper, of which Honorat is editor-in-chief, is distributed in Haiti and the United States.

Few details of the June 27 killings have been released by authorities more than a week after the violence.

U.N. police spokesman Fred Blaise said Saturday that a mob killed two men suspected of helping to steal more than $1,800 from an informal credit union in St. Rapahel, near the northern port of Cap- Haitien. A member of the mob was also killed, he said.

However, Haitian and U.N. police refused to confirm the identities of those who died, citing what Blaise called the "sensitive" nature of the case. An investigation is under way.

Blaise said one of the investigation's aims is to determine how the attack took place even though Haitian police and soldiers with the U.N. peacekeeping force were stationed nearby.

Honorat said Vernet and Michel were campaigning for as-yet- unscheduled elections for one-third of the country's 30 Senate seats.

The vote, originally scheduled for November 2007, was delayed by infighting on the electoral council and upheaval caused by the Senate's April 12 dismissal of Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis.