Ex-Haitian Army General Killed In Port-Au-Prince

A former member of the Haitian army high command was shot and killed Tuesday in suburban Port-au-Prince, a police spokesman said. There were no immediate arrests.

Former Brig. Gen. Henri Max Mayard was killed about 1 p.m. in front of a telephone company office in the Delmas suburb east of downtown, said police Lt. Jean Yonel Trecil. A passerby was wounded in the shoulder.

Mayard, 46, had left the office and entered his car when gunmen opened fire from a passing white pickup truck, police said. Radio Metropole, however, quoted witnesses as saying the gunmen fired from a blue car. Sixteen bullets struck Mayard’s vehicle, Metropole said.

A motive for the shooting was unknown.

Mayard served as army inspector general under the military regime that toppled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in September 1991, though he was not believed to be among the coup plotters.

He was the army’s fourth-highest ranking officer, behind the commander in chief, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, and Maj. Gen. Jean-Claude Duperval and Brig. Gen. Philippe Biamby.