Report on the events at the National Penitentiary on 1 December 2004

On the morning of 1 December 2004 the managers of the Port-au-Prince civil prison say they learned of a plan hatched in the Titanic quarter to create tension and force an escape. Searches turned up knives, machetes, spikes and sharpened toothbrushes, and the alleged instigators were ordered transferred to other prisons in the metropolitan area. That decision set off the revolt. Prison staff say they tried for two hours to contain it before calling in the CIMO and the GIPNH SWAT unit, which arrived two hours later and, on the network's account, fired in every direction and beat detainees who had already been subdued.

The count is seven detainees killed on the day, rising to ten as three of the wounded died, seventeen wounded by gunfire, twenty-nine beaten, six officers injured and eight cells burned, one in Titanic and seven in the isolation block. The report names the dead. It sets the events against Article 5 of the American Convention on Human Rights and the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention, and asks for a joint independent commission of inquiry, autopsies, conservatory measures against the officers who used excessive force and their referral to the courts, working equipment for prison staff so that firearms are not the only option, and application of Article 447 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which requires magistrates to visit the detention centres in their jurisdiction at least once a month.