PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – The vp of Haiti’s largest financial institution, UNIBANK, has denied involvement in any legal or gang exercise within the French-speaking Caribbean Group (CARICOM) nation after Canada imposed sanctions on him and two different distinguished enterprise executives.
Canada’s Overseas Affairs Minister, Mélanie Joly, introduced the sanctions on Carl Braun, in addition to Marc Antoine Acra, the previous adviser to former prime minister Laurent Lamothe, and Jean-Marie Vorbe, the chief govt officer of Sogener, an organization within the power sector.
Canada believes the three people are “fuelling the violence and instability in Haiti by corruption and different legal acts and by enabling the unlawful actions of armed gangs that terrorize the inhabitants and threaten peace and safety in Haiti.”
However in an announcement, Braun mentioned he has by no means throughout his 69 years of age, together with 47 years {of professional} profession, participated “neither as a briber, even much less as a corrupt, in any enterprise, any transaction, any contract with the Haitian State or with nationwide or worldwide non-public people and firms, for which I’d have given nor acquired a cost, a fee, a prebend or others, opposite to the legislation and ethics.”
He mentioned he has by no means dedicated legal acts and has no relationship, “direct or oblique, monetary, political or in any other case, with the bandits and armed gangs who terrorize the Haitian inhabitants.
“Quite the opposite, my household, my mates, my staff, my shoppers, and my companies have suffered and proceed to endure from the widespread insecurity rife in Haiti.”
Braun mentioned he intends to take and can take “all measures to defend my dignity.
“I don’t underestimate the size of the street, nor the non-public, household, and monetary prices related to it, however I can’t let my fame as a person of honesty and integrity be sullied with out defending myself.
“My honor calls for it,” he mentioned, including that he was additionally searching for to obtain from the Canadian authorities the file containing the “concrete and verifiable acts” levied in opposition to him.
Since November 2022, Canada has imposed sanctions in opposition to greater than 20 Haitian residents, whom it describes because the nation’s “political and financial elite,” for his or her position in supporting legal actions by armed gangs.
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