PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier defied a judge’s order to appear in court yesterday to face charges he was responsible for corruption and serious human rights violations during his 15-year rule.
Duvalier had already boycotted two previous court hearings, and Judge Jean-Joseph Lebrun, head of the court of appeals, responded to the latest snub by ordering that Duvalier be escorted to court by law enforcement officials next week.
The presence of the 61-year-old former “president for life” was “imperative,” Lebrun said.
Reynold Georges, who heads Duvalier’s legal team, argued unsuccessfully before Lebrun that his client’s presence was not required.
Duvalier returned to the impoverished Caribbean nation in January 2011 after 25 years of exile and was briefly detained on charges of corruption, theft and misappropriation of funds that are still pending against him.
A separate set of charges of crimes against humanity filed by alleged victims of wrongful imprisonment, forced disappearances and torture under Duvalier, was set aside by an investigating judge last year.
The judge ruled that the statute of limitations for those alleged crimes had run out. But the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, has warned Haitian authorities that there is no statute of limitations under international law for serious violations of human rights.
