Yvon Neptune
On March 27, 2004, the provisional government banned Neptune from leaving the country, along with 36 other senior officials of the Aristide administration, in order to more easily investigate corruption allegations. On June 27, 2004, after hearing about a warrant for his arrest on the radio, Neptune turned himself in to the Haïtian police and was held without charge. According to the Haïtian constitution, a hearing before a judge is required within 48 hours for anyone arrested, but Neptune was not given such a hearing. On May 4, 2005, Thierry Fagart, the chief of the human rights division at the UN's Haiti mission, called Neptune's detention illegal.[2]
On February 19, 2005, Neptune was taken into protective custody by United Nations peacekeeping forces and handed himself back[3] to Haïtian authorities after a Port-au-Prince penitentiary breakout.
On April 18, 2005, former Prime Minister Neptune began a hunger strike, refusing hospitalization and offers of medical attention abroad. On May 5 he was reported as being "near death".
On June 23, 2005, the UN's special envoy to Haïti, Juan Gabriel Valdes criticized the Haïtian government's handling of Yvon Neptune and called for his release from prison.
On September 14, 2005, 14 months after Neptune was first imprisoned, a formal statement of charges against him appeared. He was accused of participating in the "La Scierie Massacre," an alleged attack by Lavalas supporters in the La Scierie neighborhood of St. Marc. Subsequent investigations, including by the United Nations, revealed the massacre to be a struggle between two armed groups, with casualties on both sides. The Haitian Appeals Court prosecutor found that there was no credible evidence of Mr. Neptune’s involvement. Lawyers at the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights said that the statement of charges "contain[ed] no indication that Mr. Neptune directly perpetuated the crimes alleged against him nor is there a clearly defined connection between Mr. Neptune and those who are alleged to have perpetrated the crimes...The mental and factual elements necessary to establish Mr. Neptune’s responsibility…remain entirely unclear.”
In May 2006, the Haitian prosecutor recommended dropping the charges against Neptune, because there was no credible evidence to support them.
After spending two years in prison and never having been tried, he was released on July 28, 2006.[4][5] The charges against him have not been dropped; he was released on health and humanitarian grounds. Hundreds of other members of the deposed Aristide admninistration remain in custody without trial.
In July, 2006, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington ruled that the Government of Haiti's treatment of Mr. Neptune violated his international human rights. The Commission referred the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), an autonomous judicial institution of the Organization of American States based in San Jose, Costa Rica, for further proceedings.
On April 13, 2007, the Appeals Court of Gonaives ruled that the courts had never had jurisdiction to try Mr. Neptune. Under Haiti’s Constitution, regular courts in Haiti cannot try high public officials unless they have been previously convicted by the High Court of Justice, a special court formed by the legislature, similar to impeachment in the United States. As of July 3, 2008, the Haitian Government had not yet served this decision on Mr. Neptune, so it is still unofficial.
On May 6, 2008, the IACHR ruled that the State of Haiti violated 11 different provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights by illegally imprisoning former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune for two years and allowing the case to drag on in the courts for almost two more.[1] The IACHR ordered Haiti to end what it called Mr. Neptune’s continuing “judicial insecurity” and to pay him $95,000 in damages and costs. The Court also ordered Haiti to start bringing its inhumane prisons in line with minimum international standards within two years.