EX-HAITIAN OFFICIAL BEATS DRUG CASE

MIAMI - A former senior Haitian police official was acquitted Friday
of U.S. charges that he took bribes to help Colombian drug
traffickers move tons of cocaine through the island nation during the
government of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

A 12-person jury found Evintz Brillant, 33, innocent of the charges
after deliberating over two days. Brillant grinned broadly and hugged
his attorney, Howard Schumacher, after the verdict was read in court.

Brillant was the only one of four former Haitian police officials
whose case went to trial after a lengthy drug trafficking and bribery
investigation of the Aristide government by the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration.

The other three Haitian police officials pleaded guilty and agreed to
cooperate with investigators.

Aristide, who was forced out of power under U.S. pressure in February
2004 and is living in exile in South Africa, has not been charged or
directly implicated in drug trafficking.

The jury found Brillant, who has been in custody since his arrest in
May 2004, not guilty of a single count of conspiracy to import
cocaine into the United States.

U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said in a statement that 18 people
have been convicted in the Haiti drug trafficking investigation,
including six former Haitian government officials.

Brillant, once chief of Haiti's antinarcotics unit, was accused of
taking thousands of dollars in bribes from Colombian drug lords to
permit shipments of tons of cocaine through Haiti to the United
States, Europe and elsewhere.

Brillant was described by the other Haitian police officials during
the two-week trial as part of a network of corrupt police,
politicians and others who took a share of drug money to protect the
cocaine traffickers and in some cases assist in the smuggling.

Schumacher said the former officials who testified did so in hopes of
gaining a reduced prison sentence or because of promises of immunity
from prosecution.

Two admitted drug traffickers also testified against Brillant, but
there was no wiretap or other physical evidence tying him to criminal acts.

"I think the jury had difficulty relying on five government witnesses
who had benefited extraordinarily," Schumacher said.

Schumacher said Brillant was an honest cop who did not take part in
the drug-and-bribery scheme.

"Evintz Brillant was and is a police officer," Schumacher said in
closing arguments Thursday. "Evintz Brillant was making arrests. He
was making seizures, but what he wasn't doing was going along with
the team plan."

The Haitian police officials who pleaded guilty are: Jean Nesly
Lucien, the former national police director; Rudy Therassan, a former
police commander; and Romaine Lestin, former police chief at the
Port-au- Prince airport. Therassan was sentenced in July to 15 years
in prison, and the other two await sentencing.