AU-PRINCE, Haiti, SPA-- Haitian police shot and killed a prominent rebel leader in a gunbattle Saturday with several armed men, a U.N. official said. Police killed Remissainthe Ravix during a shootout in an industrial area in the capital of Port-au-Prince, said U.N. civilian police spokesman Dan Moskaluk. Ravix was one of four leaders of the three-week revolt that forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to flee Haiti on Feb. 29, 2004. Haitian and U.N. civilian police were searching for suspects in Friday's shooting of a U.N. civilian employee from India when they saw about 10 armed men fleeing an area in the Delmau neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Moskaluk said. The police chased the men into a nearby industrial area, cornering them inside a building, he said. Haitian police started exchanging fire with the men, killing Ravix, Moskaluk said. There were no other reports of casualties. Police had been hunting for Ravix for weeks, accusing him of killing four policemen Feb. 6. and orchestrating attacks on several police stations last year. Ravix had proclaimed his innocence and gone into hiding. Moskaluk said Ravix's death eliminated a threat to U.N. personnel and Haitian police and would help restore stability to a country that has been mired in outbreaks of violence since Aristide's ouster.
