Haitian ambassador fired for illegal passports, refutes allegations

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Insight:

Former ambassador Bocchit Edmond has said accusations that he secretly printed passports as part of an alleged bribery scheme were false. Edmond, whose sister is also suspected in the scheme, said the acts were the work of diplomat Glorme Juste, a cousin of former Haitian foreign minister Claude Joseph.

By Juhakenson Blaise

PORT-AU-PRINCE Bocchit Edmond, Haiti’s Ambassador to Washington, DC sacked this week on suspicion of corruption and illicit enrichment said he is not involved in any harmful act and that some want to tarnish his picture. Edmond, in a public statement, denies illegally manufacturing passports for Haitians and says other diplomats were involved in what U.S. investigators have deemed a money laundering scheme.

Asked why the irregular passport production case was brought against him, the former ambassador told the Haitian Times in a WhatsApp exchange that he doesn’t know.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry abruptly recalled Edmond to Port-au-Prince on May 3 and fired him after the alleged corruption came to light, uncovered by the US State Department.

The case against Edmond, who was appointed to the position in December 2020, dates back to June 2021. It started with money from Chile, spawned investigations in the United States and Haiti, involves various government employees in various locations and ended with investigators recommending that administrative and judicial sanctions be taken against all Haitian Embassy staff involved in the passport production system.

Checkout envelopes intercepted

It was a missive from June 2021 that triggered the investigation. It was then that US customs officers seized an envelope from the Haitian Embassy in Chile addressed to the Washington Embassy which contained 50,000 US dollars. The American authorities then launch an investigation and discover that a diplomat from the Washington Embassy, ​​Glorme Juste, is involved in money laundering.

When the State Department made him aware of the suspicious envelopes in August 2021, a month after the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Mose, Edmond said he told the former Haitian Foreign Minister of the time, Claude Joseph.

Juste has since been fired on August 9, 2021, after the Foreign Office was notified.

A month later, in September 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) opened an investigation into the Haitian Embassy. In its report, the MFA found that passports were regularly produced irregularly at the embassy.

Among the evidence cited: On September 6, 2021, 14 passports were printed at the Haitian Embassy in Washington through the account of Roody Julien, an employee. Julien told MFA investigators that he was not present at the embassy that day, local radio station Radio Mtronome reported.

Betyna Edmond, Edmond’s sister and current Consulate in New York, also came to the facility every weekend to print passports using the account of Emmanuel Content, an employee of the production unit passports. Investigators said he regularly gave access to his unlimited account to others.

The ministerial investigation explains that Edmond was involved in the establishment of a pseudo consular antenna in Salisbury in the United States without authorization. Investigators say the facility was nothing more than an attempt to standardize the process of irregular passport production.

“I do not agree with this masterfully orchestrated cabal which only aims to tarnish my 32 years of public service in my country’s diplomacy,” Edmond said in the May 4 statement. “I affirm that I have nothing to do, neither near nor far, with this affair.

Diplomats point fingers

Since the allegations became public, diplomats have pointed fingers at others they believe were responsible for various functions.

“These envelopes containing the US$50,000 were addressed to the personal residence of Glorme Juste, a cousin of then-foreign minister Claude Joseph, who had hired Juste into his position,” Edmond said in the press release. It is common knowledge that I had no control over Glorme Juste, who dealt directly with his cousin, the Minister.

Former Ambassador Edmond says he denounces the MAE report which, according to him, was carried out under the orders of former Minister Joseph.

Joseph served as Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Haiti under Mose. Just at the head of the consular services of the embassy in DC He often produces large quantities of passports, whose origin and destination of the funds received for these passports remain unknown and do not go to the coffers of the Haitian state.

As foreign minister at the time, I was just doing my job, Joseph told Le Nouvelliste. “Once informed of Glorme Juste, I revoked it and quickly instructed the then Director General and Director of Consular Affairs of the MFA to open an investigation at the Embassy of Haiti in the United States.

“The Juste affair unfortunately revealed the involvement of several diplomats, including Bocchit Edmond and his sister Betyna Edmond, in acts of corruption,” adds Joseph. “The report was actually submitted to Prime Minister Ariel Henry who ignored it. He never reacted.”

The actions of fraudulent production of passports at the Haitian Embassy in Washington constituted a corruption scheme. The Haitian government is unable to confirm the number of passports produced by Betyna Edmond and what happened to the money taken from those passports, investigators say.

Content told investigators he had received US$2,000 from the Haitian Embassy in the Bahamas for the printing of the passports, Le Nouvelliste reported.

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