The leader of the Haitian gang that is holding 17 people
associated with an American missionary group has threatened to kill the
hostages if its ransom demands are not met, according to two people present
when the threat was made and captured in a video recording.
اضافة اعلان
“I prefer that thunder burns me, if I don’t get what I need. You
see those Americans, I will prefer to kill them and I will unload a big weapon
to each of their heads,” the leader of the gang known as 400 Mawozo, Wilson
Joseph, said in the video. “I mean what I said, that’s it.”
Joseph was speaking to a crowd of hundreds of gang members in
the open, on the streets of Croix-des-Bouquet, a suburb of Port-au-Prince,
Haiti’s capital, according to the two people present when the remarks were
made. The brazenness of the remarks, made in public at a large gathering as US
officials were working with their Haitian counterparts to free the hostages,
underscores the growing clout and confidence of Haiti’s gangs, which control
much of the capital.
The threat was contained in a video circulating Thursday in Haiti,
where 16 Americans and one Canadian working with the Ohio-based Christian Aid
Ministries were abducted Saturday. It emerged as the FBI and the State
Department worked to secure the release of the hostages, five of whom are
children.
A senior State Department official traveling with the secretary
of state in South America told reporters late Thursday that the video appeared
to be legitimate. The official spoke on the condition that he not be identified
because of travel protocols.
Earlier this week, the kidnappers demanded $1 million for each
hostage. But in Haiti, where kidnapping is rife, the initial ransom demand
often bears no resemblance to what is finally negotiated.
The video, shot on the street in Croix-des-Bouquet where the
hostages were taken, was confirmed by a person who recorded the video and
another who was present when the threat was issued. What is not shown in the
video is the crowd size, which those present said was in the hundreds.
The video shows Joseph at the funeral of five gang members who
had been killed in a confrontation with police earlier this month. Joseph is
dressed in a purplish-blue suit, wearing a metal cross and holding a
wide-brimmed hat.
Joseph uses the gang name Lanmò Sanjou, which roughly translates
from Creole as “no day to die.”
Some of the gang members wore T-shirts with the names of their
slain colleagues printed in the front and images of a rifle and a knife printed
on the back with the words “we will move forward,” according to one of the
eyewitnesses.
The funeral was held in the neighborhood’s Catholic church, the
eyewitness added, and as gang members streamed out of the church onto the
street, many began pulling balaclavas over their faces to hide their
identities.
As the burials began in the cemetery, the throng of gang members
shot in the air so relentlessly that residents in the neighborhood thought
Haitian police and US officials were conducting a raid and took cover, one of the
eyewitnesses added.
In the threat-making video, Joseph is standing next to a man in
a white jacket, the leader of a gang controlling another neighborhood,
underscoring the troubling alliances the armed criminal groups are forging to
confront the weak and underequipped Haitian police. By some estimates, gangs
control about half of Port-au-Prince and its suburbs.
The US government has a team on the ground in Haiti working with
the US Embassy and local authorities to recover the hostages, White House and
law enforcement officials have said.
In a separate development Thursday, Haiti’s general police
director, Léon Charles, resigned without issuing a reason, after 11 months on
the job. He was swiftly replaced by Frantz Elbé, a relatively unknown police official.
The resignation of Charles came nearly four months after the
assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The killing of Haiti’s president
remains unsolved and the government investigation into the crime has stalled.
Charles’ resignation has been a key demand by allies of Prime
Minister Ariel Henry since September, when opposition parties signed a
political accord with Henry.
Also Thursday, a Jamaican police official confirmed the arrest
of Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios in Jamaica for overstaying his visa.
Palacios is a suspect in the assassination of Moïse and is wanted by Interpol.
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