Police: Notorious gang leader escapes in deadly Haiti prison break

One of Haiti’s most notorious and dangerous gang leaders escaped in a prison break Thursday that left several people dead at a suburban detention center on the outskirts of the nation’s capital, police said.

Arnel Joseph was awaiting trial on accusations of rape, kidnapping, homicide and illegal weapons possession. He is known for having terrorized residents in Village de Dieu, a Port-au-Prince slum and kidnapping lair. He was arrested in 2019 after a months-long manhunt.

“Arnel Joseph escaped,” Haiti National Police Spokesman Gary Desrosiers told the Miami Herald. “Forty prisoners have been recaptured.”

They were filming a movie in Haiti. Then they got kidnapped.

Desrosiers did not offer any additional details, but said police had taken back control of the facility and were doing an inventory of how many inmates remain free and how many people were killed. He and Charles Nazaire Noel, the director of the national prison system, confirmed the death of Paul Joseph Hector, a police inspector in charge of the Croix-des-Bouquets Civil Prison.

In a statement, Haiti’s Citizen’s Protection Office said the “spectacular escape” occurred midday following tensions inside the prison, the exact nature of which were not specified. Obudsman Renan Hédouville said he was told that Hector was killed by inmates. He was reportedly shot in the head.

“The initial information reports dozens of detainees had time to cross the walls of the prison; loss of human life was recorded both on the side of the detainees and on the side of the officers of the Prison Administration, according to a source close to this department,” Hédouville said in a statement.

The prison is home to a number of high-profile prisoners, including Joseph, and has experienced other escape attempts in the past. Civil society leaders immediately began questioning how one of the nation’s most high-profile criminals managed to get out.

“No prison break ever happens without the complicity of the agency, or agents,” said Pierre Esperance, a human rights advocate in Haiti. “Arnel once said he was going to leave prison and he has left for real. He didn’t do it at night. He did it it during the day.”

Esperance added: “With the situation in the country at the level we have it with kidnappings, this escape by Arnel is unbearable. The situation is now worse.”

Joseph was arrested on July 22, 2019, by a special unit of the Haiti National Police as he was being wheeled into surgery for a wounded leg at a hospital in the southern city of Les Cayes. At the time of his capture, he was considered to be one of Haiti’s most dangerous and wanted fugitives, with a $27,000 police bounty on his head for information leading to his arrest.

Esperance said this is Joseph’s third escape from prison. He escaped in 2010 and 2017 from the National Penitentiary while serving time for the murder of several policemen. The advocate, whose team routinely visits the prison to meet with inmates, said the facility has a capacity for 870 individuals but was housing over 1,500 as of mid-February. He said he was told there were seven to eight individuals killed during the incident.

Haiti senator tied to kidnapping committed by notorious gang leader, police say

The Associated Press confirmed the deaths of at least eight individuals, including Hector, the prison director, after AP journalists saw the bodies of seven men along streets near the prison. All had been shot and their identities were not immediately known. The AP said it wasn’t clear if the corpses were those of inmates or who had killed them.

Images shared on social media showed men running through the unpaved streets near the prison, some unsure of where to go.

The Croix-des-Bouquets Civil Prison is located on the road leading to the Dominican Republic border. Dominican authorities, already wrestling with the kidnapping of two of their countrymen Saturday who were part of a film crew, reinforced security at their border with Haiti in response to the news.