Investigators in Haiti accuse three members of transitional presidential council of corruption

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — An anti-corruption agency in Haiti on Wednesday accused three members of the country’s transitional presidential council of bribery in a scathing report that threatens to destabilize the country’s fragile political stability.

Smith Augustin, Emmanuel Vertilaire and Louis Gérald Gilles are accused of demanding more than $750,000 from the director of the government-owned National Bank of Credit to secure his job, the Unit for Combating Corruption said in its report.

Gilles organized a meeting among the council members, the former bank director, Raoul Pascal Pierre-Louis, and Haitian consul Lonick Leandre at the Royal Oasis Hotel in the capital of Port-au-Prince, where the demand was made, the agency said.