A well-known political leader who headed one of Haiti’s center-left political parties after making a name for himself in the lottery business is dead after being ambushed Friday night in the green hills above Port-au-Prince.
Eric Jean-Baptiste, 52, and a bodyguard were both killed sometime after 9 p.m. by armed men in Laboule, Haiti National Police spokesman Garry Desrosiers said. Desrosiers said an investigation is ongoing and declined to give any additional information.
However, The Miami Herald has learned that Jean-Baptiste, who is the current secretary general of the Assembly of Progressive National Democrats, was on his way home with a member of his security team when their vehicle was shot up. The vehicle overturned from the gunfire. The two were traveling through Laboule 12, a once serene lush hillside community in Petionville that has become a battlefield in Haiti’s escalating gang violence.
