TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuter) A Honduran high court Tuesday dashed U.S.
hopes of extraditing a former Haitian police chief that Washington has been
trying for years to try on drugtrafficking charges.

Honduras' Supreme Court of Justice rejected a U.S. request for the
extradition of Col. Joseph Michel Francois, chief of police in the Haitian
capital PortauPrince during the 199194 military regime.

``The court has decided by majority vote to reject the U.S. petition for the
extradition of Joseph Michel Francois,'' Judge Marco Alvarado told reporters.

He said Francois, who has been in Tegucigalpa's central penitentiary since
March 7, would be set free on Wednesday.

``This judgement is definitive, there will be no other recourse and the
accused can go free shortly,'' he added. ``The United States did not present
solid enough proof to back its accusations.''

Judges said the court rejected the U.S. request by five votes to four after a
gruelling, fivehour session.

Court President, Miguel Rivera, said Honduras expected no reprisals from
Washington following the decision.

The U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa was not immediately available for comment.

Francois, 39, arrived in Honduras from the Dominican Republic in April 1996
and was arrested by Honduran police backed by U.S. agents.

U.S. drug enforcement officials had hoped to whisk him straight to Miami and
into court and were dismayed when Honduran authorities held up the operation
as he was being escorted to the airport.

The United States has tried several times to have the Haitian, also accused
of human rights abuses in his home country, brought to trial in the United
States.

Washington says he used his position to turn the Caribbean country into a
vast staging post to ship thousands of pounds of cocaine and heroin into the
United States.

He is also believed to have masterminded the coup that toppled president Jean
Bertrande Aristide in 1990.

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