Haitian police arrest a former senator accused of working with gangs to
attack a peaceful community
[August 04, 2025]
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Police in Haiti have arrested a
former senator charged with conspiring against the state and financing
criminal organizations for allegedly supporting gang members.
Nenel Cassy was arrested Saturday at a restaurant in Petionville, a
wealthy district of the capital, Port-au Prince, Haiti’s National Police
said in a post on Facebook. The police shared photos of the former
senator in handcuffs next to heavily armed officers wearing ski masks.
Arrests of high level officials are rare in Haiti, where the government
is also struggling to control neighborhoods and villages that have been
taken over by gangs.
Cassy was designated as a corrupt actor by the U.S. State Department in
2023. He was accused by Haiti's police in February of backing gang
members who launched deadly attacks on Kenscoff, a neighborhood 10
kilometers (6 miles) outside Port-au-Prince that is home to much of the
nation's elite. Kenscoff had been largely untouched by Haiti's gang
violence until February's attacks in which dozens of people were killed.
The neighborhood is now being targeted by gangs that are trying to seize
more territory from Haiti's government.
On Sunday, Kenscoff's mayor told The Associated Press that nine workers
were kidnapped from an orphanage in that neighborhood by armed men,
including a foreign citizen whose nationality has not been confirmed.
Mayor Massillon Jean said the attack happened around 2 a.m.
The orphanage that came under attack on Sunday is run by Nuestros
Pequeños Hermanos, an international charity with offices in Mexico and
France that is also known as NPH. It shelters more than 240 children,
according to the organization's website.
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Senator Nenel Cassy speaks to journalists after a news conference in
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Oct. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell,
file)
In a statement published on Sunday, NPH said that seven staff
members and one youth were taken from its home for vulnerable and at
risk children in Kenscoff.
The organization confirmed that one of the staff members taken is a
foreigner, whose identity and nationality will not be revealed for
security reasons. NPH also said that two hospitals it runs in Haiti
will be closed until the people taken from its orphanage have been
safely released.
Gangs control 90% of Haiti’s capital, according to the United
Nations, and in recent months they have been launching attacks on
previously peaceful communities.
More than 5,600 people were reported killed in Haiti last year, with
gang violence leaving more than 1 million people homeless in recent
years, according to the U.N. The UN recorded 185 victims of
kidnapping in Haiti between April and June of this year, and said
that gangs commit this crime to “subjugate” people in areas under
their control.
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