EX-HATIAN POLICE COMMANDER PLEADS INNOCENT TO MIAMI DRUG CHARGE

MIAMI -- A Haitian police commander pleaded innocent Friday to drug
and money-laundering conspiracy charges after an informant pegged him
as ``the major cocaine trafficker'' in Haitian police ranks.

Rudy Therassan will remain in federal custody awaiting trial in a
wide-ranging investigation that has brought five Haitian police and
government officials into U.S. hands since the ouster of Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February.

Therassan, 52, is the only one to be indicted so far, but others are
set for arraignment in mid-June, which would require an expanded indictment.

Prosecutors are seeking nearly $1.9 million from Therassan's bank and
brokerage accounts in the United States, Haiti and the Dominican
Republic. Agents also found evidence that he owned two Palm Beach
County homes worth a combined $850,000 and had $100,000 worth of
jewelry when he was arrested.

Therassan arrived in the United States with apparent backing from the
Drug Enforcement Administration last year, but he is now accused of
plotting drug deals from April 2001 to July 2003.

He has admitted killing trafficker Hector Ketant, brother of an
imprisoned Haitian drug kingpin, in self-defense at Ketant's home. But
an informant told the DEA that Therassan was under orders from an
undisclosed Haitian government official to kill Ketant.

A trafficker, possibly Ketant's brother Beaudoin ``Jacques'' Ketant,
told the DEA that Therassan's average fee for protecting U.S.-bound
cocaine shipments through Haiti was the profit from 77 pounds.