Haitian former minister accused of rape

According to a court document seen by AFP on Wednesday, a former student has filed a rape allegation against a Haitian ex-minister of youth and sports.

According to the complaint, Evans Lescouflair, who served as minister from 2008 to 2011, raped Claude-Alix Bertrand when he was 11 years old in the 1980s.

Lescouflair — a physical education teacher — used psychological pressure and threats to force Bertrand to undress after class and then sexually touched him, with the attacks later escalating to rape, says the six-page document, which was filed on Tuesday.

The alleged abuse began when Bertrand was a student at the Saint-Louis de Gonzague, a Catholic private school for boys in Port-au-Prince. It continued at the home of Lescouflair, who offered to help the student after his removal from the school on a medical recommendation.

Bertrand, who became a UNESCO ambassador for Haiti’s tourism and sports sector and now lives in Canada, publicly discussed the issue for the first time in an online video in March.

Those convicted of raping adolescents under the age of 15 in Haiti face life in prison under the country’s penal code.

Lescouflair did not respond to demands for comment right away.