ARTICLE - MARTELLY PASSPORTS TO COMM.

"FRUSTRATED" DIEUSEUL DESRAS DELIVERS THE PASSPORTS OF MARTELLY TO THE COMMISSION
(Haiti Libre) -

Dieuseul Desras Simon, the President of the Senate submitted on Friday to the Senate Committee of Inquiry on Nationality, the passports of President Martelly, after having received them from the hands of "Religions for Peace"; visibly frustrated by the procedure used by the Head of State. The Senate President declared "...Is it because the President does not recognize the parliamentary authority that he does not want to ask us to pick them up[the passports]? If he had asked, we would have gone to seek them. Is it because he is no longer in business with us, that he called another person to do this ?

I received the passports. I took note that I received them. I have forwarded them to the Commission for 24 hours, before returning them. I'm happy with the documents. I see the manifestation of the President to work [...] As President of the Senate I have nothing to say to the Commission, or will interfere with the investigation [...] we note that 'Religions for Peace' plays a facilitating role to ensure that certain documents that the Commission has required gets transmitted via this route [...]"

Mgr. Pierre-André Dumas, representative of the Catholic Church within the platform "Religions for Peace" has indicated "...We have done our duty, we handed over 8 passports [...] They [Senators of the Commission] will likely ask that there is a matter of a residency card, they will check if the documents are incomplete and if the Commission makes the request, we can try to facilitate it. We are here to help [...] We will continue until the end. It's for the good of the country. This is for the good of Haiti..."

For his part, Protestant Pastor Sylvain Exantus informed, "...as we had taken them [the passport] publicly, from the hands of the President, we also came to deliver them publicly to the President of the Senate, who will hand them to the Commission for appropriate action... For the nation, we are available, and they have already asked us to continue playing this role, because there are still other documents of the President that they need. For example, the copy of the residence card, ... the letter that the Embassy has given him; .... and they asked us to follow up on this issue..."