Haiti: Police say officers shot and killed Wilfort Ferdinand

Michel-Ange Louis Jeune said Thursday that officers killed former rebel leader Wilfort Ferdinand after they accused him of opening fire at a police checkpoint in the coastal town of Gonaïves earlier this week.

“Police had no intention of killing anyone,” police spokesman Louis Jeune told Press of Tuesday’s shooting.

He said that Ferdinand had approached the checkpoint in a car with tinted windows only to back up and then open fire on officers, who returned fire and killed him and an unidentified person traveling with him.

Jeune said it was a routine checkpoint aimed at cracking down on the Kokorat San Ras gang, which operates in the Artibonite region and is known for its extreme violence.

Wilfort Ferdinand was a suspected gang leader who played a key role in the 2004 uprising that ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.