Dominican authorities after 1,000 convicts who fled Haiti’s crumbled jails

Santo Domingo.- Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have detected the presence of as many as 1,000 Haitian convicts in the country, who escaped from various jails in and around Port-au-Prince which collapsed in last year’s earthquake.

Those fugitives fled to the Dominican Republic across the porous border and evade any police pursuit in Haiti.

Several Dominican drug traffickers and other criminals who were serving time for crimes in Haiti returned to the country after escaping from prisons in Port Prince and Cape Haitien. Newspaper Listin, quoting a Police Criminal Intelligence source, reports that dozens of Haitian convicts came to the country with them, whom the Dominican authorities now try to locate.

More than 1,000 in the country

Police Criminal Intelligence estimates that more than 1,000 Haitian fugitivies are in the country, convicted mostly of murder, aggravated assault and kidnapping of Haitian businesspersons, dignitaries and volunteer foreigners, whose governments have paid numerous ransoms for their release.

The number may be much higher however, since the Haitian government reported that around 3,500 inmates escaped from their jails during the quake and few very have been recaptured.

“In Haiti the chaos continues, the Police nor the courts work, and the jails have yet to be refurbished,” the source said. “They have provided us photos and data on hundreds of fugitives who entered the Dominicana Republic.”

Listin also reports that the Armed Forces, the Immigration Agency, the National Investigations Department (DNI) and the National Police, in coordination with the Justice Ministry, have traced a plan to locate, apprehend and extradite all Haitian fugitives in Dominican territory.