A motorcade carrying former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was shot up in Port-au-Prince Monday in an apparent assassination attempt.
Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, was leaving a courthouse when shots were fired directly at the vehicle in which President Aristide was a passenger, The attackers were reportedly wearing police uniforms.
The former President had given testimony in a money laundering case against Jean Anthony Nazaire, former commissary of the Haitian national police, when the bullets flew towards his car.
Two people standing in front of the car were injured during the attack.
Social media captured protests by Aristide supporters in the streets of Port-Au- Prince after news of the shooting spread.
Aristide is still wildly popular among Haitians who see him as heroic figure who made it out of the slums to attain the highest office in the country.
The former Catholic priest was instrumental in the movement to expel dictator of Jean-Claude Duvalier, whose family ruled the country for almost 30 years, in 1986.
He was twice elected Haiti’s president, but both administrations were cut short after he was overthrown by opposition parties.
Soon after his first presidential victory in 1990, Aristide was forced to flee to Venezuela after a military coup — returning to the country four years later only after the U.S intervened.
