Haiti's former PM Neptune freed from jail

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Former Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune was freed today from the prison where he was held for more than two years on what he called imaginary charges after the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Frail from an on-and-off hunger strike, the 59-year-old walked out of the National Penitentiary annex supported by two UN peacekeepers. They helped him into an ambulance that took him to a UN-run hospital for a checkup.

Neptune was never tried and has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

"It's not freedom yet," he told Reuters as he left the prison. "The machinery of injustice didn't stop with my release today. The laboratories that invented those kind of imaginary crimes are very strong."

Human rights groups had repeatedly called on Haiti to free Neptune, who was arrested in June 2004, a few months after the populist Aristide gave up the presidency in the face of a bloody rebellion.

Neptune was detained on accusations he masterminded what Aristide's opponents called a massacre on February 11, 2004, in La Scierie, a small village near the western port city of St Marc. UN investigators characterized the incident as an armed clash with casualties on both sides.

An appeals court ordered Neptune's release on Thursday and he was escorted from the prison amid heavy security shortly afterward.

Brian Concannon, a US lawyer who has campaigned for his release, said he believed Neptune had been freed on humanitarian grounds.

"This is very good, but he's only been provisionally released. The charges haven't been dropped," Concannon said.

"An appeal of the charges is before the appeals court in Gonaives. The prosecutor has recommended charges be dismissed because they are unjustified."

Neptune served under Aristide and was among hundreds of Aristide supporters jailed by a US-backed interim government after Aristide was driven into exile.

He said he had been on a hunger strike for the past 15 months, consuming only liquids. Neptune expressed reservation his release was unaccompanied by a declaration absolving him of wrongdoing. He said he bore no hatred toward those who put him in prison but would continue to fight for justice.

"At a certain age, one should not be fighting for himself anymore. In such cases he would be selfish," he said as he left the prison.

"I am fighting for generations to come... The Haitian people show that they know what freedom means, and they will continue to fight for freedom, freedom not just for a few but for all."

The order for his release was made public a day after Neptune talked to reporters from his cell. He said then the government of President Rene Preval, who took office in May, would be partly to blame if he died while in prison on charges he called false and politically motivated.

Among the hundreds of Aristide supporters jailed by the interim government on vague charges, Concannon said only a few had been released.

"There haven't been mass releases. There's been a trickle. I'd say maybe 10 have gotten out," he said.

Preval said recently about 100 had been released.

- REUTERS